Fire is my Blood
by unlmtedbladewrks
Summary: Years after the 5th Holy Grail War, Shirou, Rin, and Saber had all been working on their strengths and weaknesses with one another, comforting in the bond that they share with each other. On one dead apostle hunt, they bite off more than they can chew when confronted with an ancestor. In order to save Shirou from Alaya, Rin must must make a decision, whether it be good or bad.
1. Prologue

Before we get started, I just wanted to say thank you for all who decided to pick this story up and read it. As this is my first story, it means a lot to me. If you find something that you like or just want to ask me about something, don't be afraid to review. Another thing is that I am not the fastest writer and I am always second guessing myself so don't anticipate another chapter of this for a little while even though I have already started the next chapter, but suggestions and comments should help my motivation. :) Again thanks a whole bunch for picking this story up. Hopefully you will enjoy it.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything from either of these two masterpieces, else I would not be writing this lol.

Anyways, Story Start!

Prologue: The Start of it all

8 years after the holy grail war in Fuyuki City, Emiya Shirou has made quite a name for himself. Not only has he stepped up to the challenge of diligently studying at the clock tower to improve his knowledge of mage craft, but he has shed more blood and sweat than most enforcers in order to reach his impossible dream. This group of highly advanced combat magus break out in a cold sweat at the mere mention of being combat partners with the new Magus Killer. His form could no longer be considered a part of the average far eastern man as he now had a build similar to archer, rippling muscles on par with a servant, gained through constant training and straining his magic circuits to their absolute limits as often as possible in order to improve the flow of prana through them. In doing so, part of his hair starting to turn white as well as parts of his skin starting to tan. This was mostly due to the nature of his tracing magic, and the stress that he would put on his circuits.

Although he may take the persona of a sword and killer when on the battlefield, Shirou Emiya would always set aside some amount of time to give a soft smile when partaking in his favorite pastimes, namely, cooking and being with his loved ones. Even though Shirou cannot use conventional mage craft, past the general spells that all magus can perform, he is able to overcome all limits with just his ability to reinforce himself to almost suicidal levels, his unbelievable skill with any bladed object, especially swords, and the ability to trace the components and history of any object that he lays his eyes on. Nobody knows the secrets of his mage craft besides his partner, Tohsaka Rin, and her humble servant Saber.

In the past 8 years, Rin has also been developing herself to a ridiculous level. She was invited to the clock tower in order to study the second true magic, also known as the kaleidoscope: the operation of parallel worlds, under the guidance of the Wizard Marshall, Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg. Over the years, she has begun to tap into the power that is the kaleidoscope by using her own copy of Zelretch's jeweled sword, that Shirou helped create, in order to constantly hold prana that can be used for any application. Having completed this step in the process of understanding the world around her, Rin had been constantly testing new theories that may prove to be beneficial to her, as well as Shirou and Saber. After the grail war, Rin had taken to completely supplying Saber with the prana that she needs in order to materialize. Although this takes up to 60% of her prana reserves on a day to day basis, she has recently started on research and taken advice from Zelretch on how to draw power from her parallel selves and the kaleidoscope itself as there is a lot of prana that goes into making sure that the parallel worlds stay separate. With this extra prana in store from her parallel selves, she would be able to easily overcome Sabers need for prana and could use more of her reserves for something more applicable.

Saber, on the other hand remained steadfast and true as an arrow over the years, as one would expect from a former king. Being someone that Shirou and Rin could rely on through the tough times made it all the better. When Shirou had expressed his desire to become stronger, all those years ago, she did not believe that he would have ever achieved the level of strength that he currently had. She had put him through a rigorous training schedule right after high school in order to allow himself to slowly but surely develop the muscle mass needed in order to keep up with a servant like herself. Coupled with his unique ability to reinforce his body to an even greater extent, Shirou was eventually able to take the full brunt of her attacks and even allow her to go all out after a few years. During this time, Shirou was also being coached by Saber in the way of the sword.

By consistently sparing with one another, both were able to improve upon their own abilities and strategies while fighting. Shirou already had an innate knowledge of sword fighting based on his tracing's ability to comprehend how a sword forged, as well as how it was used. The problems with this were that Shirou had not trained himself to use such a style and thus was very taxing on his muscles.

This problem had been slightly rectified with Saber's spartan training which had allowed him to manipulate the sword styles of those who wielded the weapons inside of Unlimited Blade Works. Saber had her own style of swordsmanship that she had carefully perfected over the years of her life that was further improved upon the extended training with Shirou by allowing more freedom in her movement and trying to get around Shirou's guard and thus became a frightening opponent to anyone who thought they could face the King of Knights in combat. Shirou decided that he should try to develop his own style, or the style that had been thought of by Archer, instead of just imitating the skills of other blade masters. This way Shirou would be able to rely on his own ability rather than having to keep using the skills of heroic spirits and warriors. By helping him develop and perfect the style that Archer had been using, by allowing to predict where one's enemy might attack, Shirou Emiya soon became a very real threat to the world of magus.

Saber also had quite a few embarrassing experiences that felt like a minor blow to her pride with Rin and Shirou as well. Due to Rin having to sustain her with prana regularly as well as using the rest of her reserves to research her mage craft, Rin was constantly running dry on prana every day. They needed a solution to this problem that was efficient and resourceful in order to keep up with their daily lives. Fortunately, or unfortunately (depending on who you ask), the only real solution to this problem was to be even more intimate with each other more often.

The tantric rituals that these three performed together were used in order to supply both Rin and Saber with a large quantity of raw prana, and what better way to share prana with one another than through one of the most spiritually charged liquids known to man. While committing these acts together, they got to see so many different sides of each other, such as Rin being the super dominate one who wouldn't take no for an answer. Saber, who blushed like a teenager who had just been confessed to, would revere Rin as a queen while she was on top of things and could not go against her orders, no matter what her young master demanded. Shirou, not being able control Rin either, had been put through some very embarrassing demands, but not before showing complete devotion to both of his lovers, causing both Rin and Saber to melt like putty in his hands when he was the one in control. Overall, they all experienced a new side of themselves that they would not have believed except for the fact that it was some of the foremost memories in their mind.

Besides becoming close physically, these three grew a mental bond and spiritual bond so deep, that they became dependent on each other. The three of them had always lived their lives in solitude, rejecting the need for comfort from someone close to you, whether that be from a brother, parent, friend, or lover. But once the Grail War had started and they began to rely on one another, they all experienced what it was like to not be alone anymore and want someone to rely on in your time of need.

Rin had always been alone after the events of the 4th Holy Grail War and steeled herself with a false personality just to make sure nobody could see just how much she longed for the attention of others and to become more than just a stranger in her eyes. Rin could not imagine a world without the two, who she could call family, anymore, and would take numerous steps in order to prevent anything from happening to them. Even if it meant compromising her position in the Clock Tower.

In Saber's case, she had ruled with a calm but iron fist during her life as a just and fair King. But as a just and fair King you must do things that would only allow for the prosperity of the kingdom itself, even if that means burning down your kingdom's villages in order to stop the advance of the enemy. Saber was a fair and just king, not a kind one. She wished, gods how much she wished, that this was not her role, the role of one who must cast aside personal feelings in order to maintain the safety of your kingdom as all people in the kingdom are relying on you for protection.

She had not wished to be born this way, but had accepted the duty, nonetheless. Yes, there were more than a few things that she wished she could have made a better choice. During the events of the grail war, Saber allowed herself to open up and to expose her true self to those around her that she could trust believing that they would accept her for who she is on the inside, not just the kingly figure that they see on the outside. After realizing just how much she believed in both Rin and Shirou, she knew that she would do anything, even at the cost of her own life, to protect those who she considered family, or lovers on a more intimate level.

Shirou had also grown up in a very isolated environment. By the time that he was eleven, Shirou's adoptive father had passed away after succumbing to injuries and curses that he received from the corrupted grail during the 4th Holy Grail War. Besides the young lady of the nearby yakuza faction, Shirou did not usually have anyone stop by and interact with him, to help him open up to others. Although he had met Sakura earlier before he started high school, she had always felt like someone who would close off her heart on her own and never allow anyone into it.

After the Grail War, Shirou had put a lot of time and effort into perfecting his own reality marble, based off his own experiences and memories, it wasn't until 4 years after the Grail War had Shirou realized why he could not project his soul onto the world the same way that Archer had, as well as when he fought Gilgamesh. This was due to Shirou, in his soul, not believing that he was alone anymore. In Archer's reality marble, which he had based his own reality marble off of, the world was lonely and dark, mechanical gears hung in the sky to show just how Archer saw himself. Archer believed that he was to work alone and die by himself on a hill of swords by himself. This is why when Shirou had tried using his own incantation for Unlimited Blade Works when fighting Gilgamesh again, as well as Archer's incantation for Unlimited Blade Works, he would feel immense pain, as if the blades inside his soul were forcing him to not attempt to do that again.

He was so confused as to why he was failing in the only way he knew how to conduct mage craft that he soon started to revert back into what Saber and Rin were trying to convince him to not become. He had started returning to the personality where only saving people mattered, not his own personal safety. This is when his two lovers decided that they had seen enough of the moping Shirou and confronted him about it. First it was a quiet conversation, that steadily grew more and more heated, before Rin finally managed to slap some sense into him, quite literally.

She had told him that the reason he felt such pain and sorrow when using Unlimited Blade Works is because in his soul, he wasn't alone anymore, he could rely on the two who trusted him with their lives. Shirou, finally coming to a slight understanding, reignited the fire in his gold/steel gray eyes. Maybe he could not save everyone, but he would commit his life to saving everyone that he could save within his own power. Another revelation that came to Shirou was that he could not ever believe that some random person's life held the same amount of weight in his soul as the weight that Rin's and Saber's hearts did. His body would be cut, torn, mauled, destroyed, or vaporized before he would allow them to be injured, standing as the one who protects those that he loves.

After this argument, with Shirou reaffirming his own goal in life, he began to start and find a way in order to open his own reality marble. Not one that Archer made, not one that he based off Archer's, but a reality marble that he could call his. By being able to do this Shirou would be well on his way to reaching the peak at which Archer had set for him.

Soon after Shirou had resolved himself, the three became virtually inseparable. The bond between these three becoming so close that they could be called dependent on each other, not just physically but also mentally. Due to such an unbreakable bond forming between these three, they could never part from each other for more than a week, as they would start to feel lonely or anxious about not having the others there. Shirou was the one who experienced this the most as he was constantly out on dead apostle hunts, or just apprehending a rogue sealing designate who broke the rules set by the clock tower and the church.

One could say that he was a fault for bringing this feeling upon himself, as he usually volunteered for these missions, but he was doing this to make sure that he was strong enough, capable enough, to stand by their side when they needed him the most. As well as saving as many people as he could in the process. Even if that meant not always being with them.

This bond that was shared between them also affected them subconsciously. One example would be that all three have started to say the exact same thing at the same time, as they have started having similar thoughts to each other as a result of being so closely bonded to one another. The other example is the dreams.

It is widely known in the mage world where if you are bonded to a spirit of some sort, whether it be heroic or just a grounded ghost, you will start to see the highlights of one's life and how they lived through your own dreams. Both good and bad, everything is exposed without exception. Shirou and Saber can't help but want to hold Rin tighter against themselves every time they see just how lonely she was when she was younger after she had lost both her parents and her sister in the 4th Holy Grail War. Saber's life had been a tragic tale in the making of a king who did not want to be a king and how the ones who were closest to her were the ones to betray her. Her own group of knights, The Knights of the Round, had been forced to choose a side and every decision had hurt, but none more than her right-hand aid, Lancelot du Luc. The visions also showed Saber's death at the hand of her own son (daughter?), Mordred and how before she could pass away, she stabbed her own spear, Rhongomyniad, into her own proxies' chest, forever ended the legacy of Camelot. After seeing something so tragic Shirou and Rin would instinctively shower Saber with love and show her why they would never leave her side, no matter what happened. Saber would be forever grateful that she now had people that she could open her heart up to and embrace them with all of her being.

Shirou's past had been the one that the girls could never get over. Even after experiencing everything that life has to throw at you, its pain and sorrow, they could never meet with the absolute feeling a death and despair that Shirou's oldest memory held.

They could feel the fire that had consumed hundreds, the smell of smoke and ash barely working to cover the rancid scent of burning flesh and organs. People begging for someone to save them, or just their children, as Shirou walked through the fire, slowly losing feeling in his body and soul. People praying to God that he would deliver them from evil. But that never happened. The fire claimed all, almost as if it was sent from the devil himself and consumed everyone. Men, women, children, young, old, good, evil. Nothing survived, despair reigned supreme. Shirou decided to just give up, lay down and finally to just die. To not exist anymore, as there wasn't anything worth living for anymore.

Until a single man, desperately looking for anything, anyone, shuffled through the mess and remains of both architecture and human bodies alike. And then his gaze met Shirou's, before tears started falling and the man quickly running over to him and placing something that was shining and golden inside of him, before lifting him into his arms and holding him close.

All throughout this the man and been crying and thanking God or whoever was listening, for allowing him to save the young boy who look emotionally and physically broken. The only thought running through the boy's head after these events was, "Could I smile like that if I saved someone", before passing out and allowing the dream to end.

For a good reason, Rin and Saber always checked up on Shirou, knowing that his dream of being a hero of justice was long and hard, even if he now prized himself a little bit more than he used to. But in Shirou's case, if was self-inflicting harm, as he used to not care what happened to his body as long as he was helping in need. Rin and Saber had slowly begun to steer him away from that direction thanks to the bond that they all shared, as they could slightly feel all of the emotions running through both of them when he was going to do something stupid.

Eventually Shirou learned that not everyone in the world are equal to him. He would give his life for Rin or Saber without a moment's notice if they are in enough danger. He would also do this to people in need, but Rin and Saber had been forcing himself to beware of just how reckless he was before actually acquiring proper training from Saber. The bond between these three felt like a slight invasion of privacy but would prove just how close the three of them were, and just how far each of them would go for each other.

3rd Person

Shirou, Rin and Saber were tired. After having to fly for 12 hours just to reach a small island in the Caribbean, they were immediately thrown into combat with the local population of the undead after having to crash land the plane. Shirou felt intense frustration and regret by not being able to be present before the dead apostle ancestor managed to take control of the island and make everyone on it into mindless slaves.

Following the rules of the world that he lives in, all undead must be put to rest in the quickest way possible. No exceptions. Rin had decided to tag along on this mission in order to test out a new way to store prana in a crystalline structure and the effects that it would have in combat, and thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to experiment and not have any repercussions for blowing up large areas that were usually quite expensive. And if there was one thing that Tohsaka Rin wish she had; it was money. Afterall, all the problems in the world can be solved with money, right?

Saber had joined up mostly due to the fact that she could not stray too far from Rin as the female magus was her primary source of prana that allowed her to materialize. Although it did help that Saber expressed a concern for Rin's safely and made it her job to make sure Rin was protected and that no harm would come to her while on the mission. Overall though, Rin had made sure to stick as close as she could to her partners as she knew Saber would make sure she out of harm's way as much as possible as well as Shirou, who was starting to scratch the layers of being a Servant himself based on the speed, power, and skill that he had shown lately. After projecting a few black keys, as well as materializing Excalibur with its blessing of mist, the two front-liners made short work of the surrounding undead that had quickly shown up after they had crash landed.

Their main objective now was to find the group of enforcers that had made their way onto the island in order to scout out what exactly was happening on the island. To do this, Shirou closed his eyes in concentration and took a deep breath through his nose. This allowed him to pinpoint where a decently large amount of prana was being expelled as well as a very dark presence that Shirou could only identify as a dead apostle ancestor, or something similar to one anyway.

After trekking across the green hills of the Caribbean island, the young group managed to find where the enforcers had camped out. They looked a little winded and fatigued, but that is only natural due to the large amount of dead bodies that surrounded their camp. After making some quick introductions and allowing some time to rest, the enforcers expressed their desire to end this as quickly as possible and to head on home. Shirou had told Rin earlier where he might have caught on to where the boss of the undead was around here, to which Rin showed an area where the big boss might be. It almost seemed a little too cliché as the only infrastructure in the area that Shirou had felt that dark energy, was an old, worn down church that looked like it could fall apart at any second. Both Saber and Shirou seemed a little on edge while they had taken their break with the enforcers, and if Rin knew one thing, it was to trust the instincts of the two highly adept swordsman.

While traveling through the night, under the cover of darkness, the group of enforcers and the terrific trio had made quick work of the blood slaves that haunted the ground of the island and quickly made their way to the old and abandoned church, in order to find the head apostle to stop the spread of the infection from spreading to larger landmasses and turning more innocent people into mindless slaves.

After a few hours of wading through the lifeless corpses and rivers of blood, with only a couple of little rests, the ragtag group of enforcers and magus slowly made their way to the center of the island where the church was as well as the feeling of corrupted and filthy mana was being emitted throughout the area. At this point Saber and Shirou looked as though they were to fight at the drop of a pin, and Rin could understand why. The overwhelming presence of death permeated through her bones, but she had already experienced that, thanks Berserker. No, what she felt was wrong, as in prana being used for very sinister devices, things that should be taboo and scorned from the world.

As they approached the front door of the church, both Shirou and Saber finally gave into their instincts and summoned their swords, Shirou with Kanshou and Bakuya and Saber with Excalibur, as their anxiety and paranoia for what was through the door caused Rin to take on an expression of surprise. She had never seen her two lovers this tense, even in the face of Gilgamesh, the corrupted grail, as well as Hercules. Saber and Shirou looked like they wanted to be anywhere but in front of that door at that moment, before finally, an enforcer decided to take things into his own hands and push open the chapel doors.

In an instant he was quickly stabbed cleanly through the middle of the forehead by an object that looked like a mix between a branch, a tentacle, and something you might find clogged in your drain.

"Holy Shit!" exclaimed one of the other enforcers nearby as he was in shock by what had just happened.

"Rin, get back!" both Shirou and Saber shouted at the same time, as they noticed more objects being quickly shot through the open door. More and more branches began to fly through the air in an attempt of stabbing anything that was alive.

Quickly, after the eldritch branch of horror had been stabbed through the poor man, the man started attacking the nearby enforcers with savagery not found in human beings.

"Shirou be careful, those branches might be directly connected to the dead apostle in charge around here."

Quickly Swinging Kanshou and Bakuya, the married blades who always return to each other, Shirou started cutting down all of the branches that had stemmed their way as well as any stray branches that happen to be nearby. Saber had followed suit and started cutting down any branches that got past Shirou and was determined to not let anything harm Rin. Rin on the other hand, was starting to channel her own prana reserves in order to lessen the burden on Saber and allowing her to perform at peak capacity as well as formulating a few spells that could be of use in a pinch if either of her lovers were overwhelmed by the branches. Slowly but surely, Shirou, looking like a whirlwind of blades as the married blades were gleaming against each other, was advancing into the church, whilst reducing any branch that came within his vicinity to a pile of splinters. Saber relaxed a little as the number of branches that were flying the group slowly came to a halt. After the branches claimed another of the enforcers life's, Shirou grimaced but pushed on through the doorway into the church.

Under the darkness of the church itself, he could vaguely make out a contorted shape that was further into the room. As the group of living humans and magus, slowly followed Shirou into the church, Saber brought her sword up again as the feeling that she had before suddenly disappeared, as if had not been there before. Shirou visibly twitched when that happened and narrowed his eyes to have a good look at what was causing all the mayhem on this island. A well-dressed man, whose flecks of gray hair in his beard and hair and showed that he looked like he was middle-aged. That wasn't counting the blood-red eyes, as well as the slightly pointed teeth that were visible in his surprisingly soft smile.

"Welcome to my humble abode, enforcers of the clock tower. You responded just as fast and as skillfully as I thought you would. Would you care for a few words before you lot mindlessly begin to attempt to slaughter me? I quite enjoy the company of people after all." the silver-tongued man stated when he became visible to everyone in the room.

Shirou, quietly eyeing the man, thought this is quite the strange encounter. Usually all apostles are more about feasting on humans, expanding their undead army and whatnot. But not this one. This one was genuinely interested in talking to the uninvited guests in his home or so he claimed. He did not even have a shred of bloodlust or killing intent which was the most surprising fact for Shirou. Rin and Saber stood behind him, both hiding expression of surprise on their faces with what they had just heard.

Before Shirou, or Rin for that matter, could get a word in, an enforcer who had been enchanting his fists with some type of runes that he had been continuously present since the fighting had started had launched himself at the calm and focused being that sat in his chair.

"Take your dialogue to hell with your body and soul, dead apostle!,'' was the last thing that he ever said, as right before his fist could make contact with the face of the apostle, branches, almost as if waiting for the most dramatic moment, pierced through the body of the impulsive fool 20 different ways before he finally hit the ground, soul lost from his body and clearly dead.

"Such a shame, I was hoping for a reasonable conversation." Commented the man, has the body was soon absorbed into the ground where it had fallen.

"Idiot."

Shirou could hear the faint statement of slander over his right shoulder but decided not to comment as he kept his eyes on the main target of mission. Shirou decided to see what type of person this dead apostle turned out to be, and why he seemed so intent on making small talk with the people who had been tracking him down to kill him. So Shirou spoke up.

"Who are you? And why are you doing this exactly?"

Shirou asked without a hint of hesitation and with enough to steel to cause the other enforcers in room to flinch from his voice at his seriousness. Rin looked at Shirou incredulously before giving him a piece of her mind.

"Shirou!? What are you doing you oaf?! That is a dead apostle!" In the loudest whisper that you can imagine. Saber just slightly closed her eyes and sighed in resignation, before quickly setting back up into her defensive stance next to Rin.

"I just want to hear what he has to say, that's all. After all, he is taking the time to talk himself and not firing off those black branch things at us anymore. Why not a little bit of conversation?" Shirou quickly responded back.

All while this small exchange was going on the man just seemed content that someone had finally decided to have a decent conversation with him.

"Ahem," the man produced by coughing into his fist causing Shirou and Rin to swiftly turn back to the dead apostle in the room, "If I have your attention now, It is nice to finally meet someone who wishes to engage in conversation," his eyes narrowing, "Even if the one who asked does not believe he is human himself." The man said with a small smile.

This time, Rin, Saber and Shirou all went wide eyed at the implication of what he just said and quickly narrowed their own eyes.

"_How does this man know of Shirou's abilities? Or maybe he doesn't know the specifics, but he can "feel" the amount of steel that is present in Shirou. Either way, if this apostle has senses as good as I believe, then I think we just walked into a whole heap of trouble." _Rin thought, going over some possible hypotheses as to why Shirou's true nature had been revealed.

During this exchange, the other enforcers in room just sat back absorbing all the information that was being tossed around by the dead apostle.

"My name is Harper Langley Berrye, former head of the house Berrye, and former lord of botany at the clock tower," the man proclaimed, as he stood up and did a small bow before everyone in the room.

It was Rin's turn for her jaw to hit the floor as the man revealed his identity to everyone.

"_A noble, as well as a former lord of the clock tower, this can't be good," she thought._

Questions began flanking her mind, why is there such a prestigious person in the middle of nowhere, why has this man turned into a dead apostle, what has he done to those trees and plants surrounding him? Someone this powerful would usually cause more harm than it was worth for him to be defeated, but instead approached this situation with grace and elegance that often associated with a noble.

"_Just who is this man?!" _Before Rin or Shirou could ask any questions about the strange man, he spoke himself.

"Before you ask any questions I would like to explain myself," with another small bow and smile he began to speak again, "Back when I used to teach at the clock tower, I think it would be correct in saying that I was one of the more well-liked professors in the clock tower. I just loved to see the smile on people's faces when they finally understood something, or the look of effort that one would give trying his absolute best in order to achieve something that he has strived for. I got along well with all of my students and did my best to enjoy the presence of the other lords, even if I did not like them. Not to mention a loving wife waiting for me at home every day when I returned from work. It was a happy time that I wish I could return to, just relaxing, teaching, and researching." The man said with his eyes closed and a deep sigh as if remembering like it was yesterday.

"So why, and more importantly how did someone like you become a dead apostle? You sound like you had life pretty figured out at that point, why did you decide to quit and give up everything that you had built up?"

This question came from Rin, as she could see how after a few years of relative safety in the clock tower had allowed her to have better focus and an ease of mind knowing that there weren't that many people who would come after her, both publicly and privately. This was mostly due to Rin being an apprentice of The Wizard Marshall, which would spell doom for anyone who interfered with anyone who was associated with him. Not to mention being the known lover of the Second Magus Killer. Being on the shit end of either of those was just asking for a death sentence.

Although her reputation would not calm her down when she would not hear from Shirou in over a week sometimes, but after that happened twice over some missions that Shirou got sent out on, Rin taught Shirou to anticipate a "light" punishment if they did not keep in contact. Needless to say, Shirou and Rin had put up with the pain of learning how to use the basics of a cell phone in order to stay connected with each other.

The man in the room looked at Rin for a second, switching his focus over to Shirou, as if finally understanding something, he blood-red eyes went back to Rin with a smirk on his lips. Shirou could hear the tick mark make itself present on Rin's forehead as he noticed the shit eating grin that was present on the man's face. After a few seconds of silence, Rin could not hold it in anymore.

"What are you smirking at old-timer?!" Rin exclaimed in a voice that was a mix between a yell and a growl.

"You, the blonde swordsman, and the multicolored hair boy in front of you are lovers, are you not?" The man commented, smirk never leaving his face.

"W-," Rin started before all anger subsided and turned into pure embarrassment as her face turned bright red, Saber on the other hand just looked down quietly and coughed softly once.

"W-Was it that easy to tell?" Rin said softly, while looking down, before Shirou and Saber, as well as the rest of the enforcers in the area, sweat dropped over the rapid change in personality. Shirou could not believe that the same girl that used to deny all feelings about anything, and put the "tsun" in tsundere, was now blushing like a middle school girl who just got asked out by her first crush.

"Yes, it is, to be honest. You keep taking glances at them throughout our conversation so far, not to mention they are currently in a stance to jump and cover you first rather than to close the distance between us. This reminds me a lot of how my late wife, and I used to act together. Although she would be the one to jump out and protect me at a moment's notice." A hearty laugh came from the aged man, as he remembered something enjoyable from his former life.

While laughing his eyes had slowly been lowering, remembering better times. Everyone in the room could feel how the atmosphere seemed to have dropped 20 degrees in the span of a few seconds at what the man had just said. Rin, needing answer decided to be the one to ask the million-dollar question.

"Forgive me for being blunt, but what happened to your wife?", Rin stated.

The man looked down, eyes closed and scrunched up together.

"My wife, Elizabeth, never knew exactly what I was. She was just a regular human who wanted to live her life out best way possible. I just so happen to meet her and could not convince myself to tell her the truth, I didn't want to burden her with knowledge of the dark side of this world and more importantly I wanted her to stay out of it. I think she knew I was into something dangerous but never brought up the subject. She was amazing, a saint of the kindness in my humble opinion, so much that once I found out that she could not have children, I could not convince myself to leave." He explained, as most of the magus in the room opened their eyes at the implication. Not being able to have children as a magus would basically mean you were throwing away all your research to be destroyed and your family crest ending with yourself, something unbelievable by any magus worth their mysteries.

"Thus, inevitably ending the dynasty of my family's magic crest, one that has over 300 years of research in it." He looked at the dull green crest as it shown on his left forearm. Rin could not fathom the man's train of thought. Was this woman so important to this man that he would give up 300 years of research just to be with her, effectively losing all status in the clock tower as well?

"My job as professor of the clock tower would occasionally require me to take on an expedition that would result in an increase in the budget of my research. I went on an expedition to explore a rather unmarked part of the Amazon rainforest that happened to be on top of a leyline. The objective of the mission was to see if any of the plants that were near one of the more purer leylines in the world, had adapted to the large quantities of mana being released from the earth, giving the plants the option to store the mana and use it as an energy source instead of the sun in order to grow.

The results were mildly successful as some plants had managed to grow their own pseudo magic circuit inside of their limbs, and even continue to grow after being removed from the soil." He looked up again, excited to be talking about some of the fascinating results of his research, before slowly lowering his head back down, depressed by his own thoughts.

"I had always tried to keep in contact with Elizabeth when I traveled out of the country, no matter what, just to make sure she was fine and to hear her beautiful voice. So, when I had not heard from her in a few days, I began to worry but I just waved it off, saying that she is just busy with work, not trusting my own instinct. After returning to England and reporting the results of the expedition and some of the samples that I had managed to bring with me, I finally made my way home to my loving wife." At this part the poor man could be seen with tears beginning to fall down his eyes, hands clenched white like he wanted to strangle the nearest object.

"When I would leave on these trips, I would ask the clock tower to have someone watching over the house just in case someone had decided to take drastic measures against me. She had been home alone, when the group of guardsmen that had been hired by the clock tower disabled the bounded field that I had set up around the house. Then they had broken down the front door and quickly made their way in. Elizabeth was quite a fighter, you see, and actually managed to kill one of the brutes before they finally pinned her down. Once I had managed to catch one after I returned, they confessed saying that they received an anonymous tip and a large amount of money, saying that if they killed the woman inside the house, they could have all the money that was presented up front as well as whatever they can find in the house. On top of that, the employer never said what to do with the woman beside her being dead." It was dead silent in the church as everyone had begun to piece together was exactly happened.

"Elizabeth had been raped 5 times over the course of 30 minutes before the men decided that they had enough of her and cut her into pieces and throw her all over the house, before ransacking the house and disappearing, from what I heard from a friend when they were discussing the case." Harper said, voice wavering with every word.

If they thought that the room had dropped in temperature before, this felt like the second coming of the ice age. Nobody in the room even attempted to talk, all while the man let out his emotions, with tears streaming down his face, before looking up with the unforgettable look of steel in his eyes. Shirou knew that exact look, he saw it every time that he looked in the mirror.

"I managed to find all of her in separate areas of the house and, slowly but surely, I sewed her back together using a bit of botany mage craft with very thin vines. After this I left for the clock tower in a rage of fury. I stormed directly to the headmaster of the clock tower to explain myself and to ask why this had happened not caring for anyone who got in my way. I only knew one person who had this type of power, money, and motivation to do this.

Emerson Edmund Fryee, another lord of the clock tower who had been making deals with lower standing families to raise their rank in the clock tower. We had never seen eye to eye on a lot of topics, but I never thought that he would have gone this far just to make me give up my position of lord of botany at the clock tower." Streams of tears were clearly evident now and were even more painful as nobody knew what to say and just silently stood, waiting for the broken to speak again. When he finally finished, he once again looked as though he was hardening his resolve.

"Obviously the man denied all claims of attempting this and was about to get away to, but before the clock tower could release him of all charges, one of the guardsman who had been present during that night claimed to see the same wristwatch on the cloaked man as Emerson had been wearing. After hearing this evidence, I could not control the rage inside of myself anymore, and I called forth my mysteries and allowed them to wreak havoc on the cruel man. Needless to say, that man is no longer with us. Unfortunately, killing a lord of the Clock Tower is illegal no matter how much they pain they have caused. Although due to some more evidence that was eventually found, convicting the dead man of the corruption, I was allowed to live but was quickly ejected from the clock tower, on top of losing my lord position. Before I left, I had managed to find the body of my wife and take her away from the clock tower."

At this point Rin was starting to feel anxious and wanting the man to finish up his story.

"As someone who has lost someone important to themselves as well, I know where you are coming from, but why and how did you become a dead apostle?" Rin commented tapping to foot to a slight rhythm.

"I could never forget the time that I spent with Elizabeth, not matter what I did. So, I chose to attempt to bring her back, no matter the cost." The last words heavily emphasized. Beat red eyes, cutting into Rin like one of Shirou's swords through her soul.

Rin took a few seconds to realize what he just said and looked back distastefully at the broken man after confirming in her head what exactly he said again. This she started laughing, but this wasn't laughter of joy or sadness, but of mocking.

"Ha, do you think it will be that easy to just recreate the third true magic, the Heaven's Feel?! Do you not know the attempts of that already? Here is a hint, the holy grail war." Rin said as she looked back the man in pity and disgust.

"That conflict was more than just a simple ritual, it was a matter of life and death, the moment you step onto the battlefield. Just staying alive was hard enough, but to learn that the grail was corrupt from the very start, put quite a damper on the whole, "wish-granting artifact."" This time it was Shirou who was the one to speak up and you could hear the regret and pain coming through his voice.

"Even so," Harper began again, "I could not look her in the eye, without telling her how sorry I am making it my duty to bring her back no matter what. In order to attempt to bring her back, I first needed more power and one of the easiest ways to do that is make sure that it is rather hard to kill yourself as well as just having enough power to meet my own goals. Using the blood of a dead apostle ancestor, I soaked some of the red liquid into my vines in allowed them to travel throughout my body to enhance and modify my body, into one of an apostle allowing the plants to become a rather large part of me and my soul." As soon as he said this, he could see an orange light slowly come down towards the floor and what was inside shocked everyone present.

"This is my wife Elizabeth, and the container that keeps her body well preserved. By allowing her body to keep its shape, if I manage to gather enough magic energy, then she would be able to experience life again." He said pointing to the bulb of orange liquid that looks like non-viscous honey.

"In order to bring her back I need enough prana to kickstart the process, if the holy grail could grant any wish with only the souls of seven heroic spirits, how many human souls do you think it would take in order to only bring one back?" Shirou took a deep swallow and looked like someone had just stabbed him in the back.

"That still does not make it right! Yes, what happened was unfortunate, but you need to move on and attempt to prevent things like," Shirou waved around the room and outside, "this! All the things you have done." Rin could tell Shirou was a little wound up and lightly put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down.

"It may not be right to you, but it is to me, no matter how many sacrifices I have to make in order to bring her back into my arms, I will do anything." Harper declared, his red eyes starting to glow brighter, sending out a pulse of power that would have caused the more weak-willed people to be trembling and falling to their knees.

"What if something happened to the little miss behind you, hm? Do you love her enough to prevent any harm from coming to her at the cost of the lives of others? Could you honestly say that you would give her life for the life of the many?" The dead apostle aggressively questioned, as if he wanted the answer to question himself.

Shirou knew this question was coming and he has had a long 8 years to think about it. By continuously putting himself before others in an attempt to save as many people as possible, as well as staying with Rin and Saber at the time, Shirou began to create a new ideology for himself. To save as many people as possible without having to endanger the lives of those that he cherishes. Over time, as his bond with his two lovers grew further, he made sure to start watching out for his own safety and life and not just throwing it away for someone that he hardly knows. He knew how torn Rin and Saber would be if he died and left them alone in the world. So he made damn sure to never bite off more than he could chew for the fear of leaving his comrades along in the world, not to mention if he did come back alive, he would be in for one hell of a lecture and some servant class "training" to make sure that he didn't do anything like that again.

Shirou believe himself to be a sword, but he was changing. Very subtly, but he was slowly changing. He was becoming someone again, human again. All of the emotions that were lost in the fire, Shirou was slowly gaining back what it means to be human. Of course, he would always attempt to save as many people in the world that he could, but he found some others that were just a little more important to him than everyone else in the world combined.

Rin had been the first to bring it up to Shirou, with Saber added that she saw more emotion passing through his features more than ever before. Shirou himself could not believe it but the first time that he subconsciously decided against going on a dead apostle ancestor hunt for the fear that he may not be able to return to the ones that meant the most to him.

"Once, I believed that it was my duty as a person striving to be a hero of justices to save everyone, no matter the circumstances that may lay out before me." Shirou said as he closed his eyes and concentrated on the words that he now lived by, with Rin and Saber standing behind him anxiously waiting for his answer, as he had never put into words what he now stood by to them.

"That boy did not understand the task that he was fighting for was an impossible one. One filled with an unimaginable amount of blood and strife that would never be fulfilled no matter how much power that he managed to muster. Only after meeting someone remarkably similar to myself did I understand what I was putting myself up to. Violence and death, and the incarnation of the question that you just asked. Sacrificing the one for the many in any case." Shirou prattled on as Rin and Saber both had a deep look of recollection, as they knew exactly who Shirou was referencing. The dead apostle in the room giving Shirou look of pondering before Shirou continued.

"It was at that moment where I began to change, shaping my soul back into something that I had once lost. After spending an extended amount of time with both Rin and Saber, they gave me a reason become one who would save his cherished ones above all others. It would not be an understatement in saying that they mean more than the world to me, which is quite literal. Yes, I would still continue to save as many people as I could with the power that I wielded even willing to give up my own life for those people. But if someone was threatening my loved ones, by the power that I have gained through sweat and blood, I will come down on them like an avenging angel and leave nothing in my wake." Shirou declared loud and for all to hear. The two behind him had never heard Shirou speak these lines in all the years of knowing him. The dead apostle behind him giving him a look of respect. But Shirou wasn't done there.

"But there is one key difference between you and me that I have recently realized shows even more love and dedication to my lovers than you show yours." Shirou said with a small smirk while the one who originally asked the question had a look of both questioning and rage. Rin and Saber just stared at Shirou with eyes of admiration.

"And what have you learned that puts your commitment above mine?! I sacrificed everything that I had and more in order for the small chance that I may or may not be able to hold my wife in my arms again!" Power extruded in large waves from the man, as he yelled out in rage. Shirou just steeled is resolution again, undeterred by the amount of pressure that the undead man in front of him was emitting.

"What I have learned is that in order to stay with those that I love for the longest time possible, I not only have to protect them, but I must take my own life into consideration as well to make sure that the future that we will have together will be long and fulfilling." Shirou said as he stared at the man down as he spoke again before he could retort, turning to look at Rin and Saber both.

"If they love me as much as I love them, then I know that they would hate to see me in pain and would want to protect me just as much I would want to protect them." He spoke softly, beholding at Rin and Saber as they just gave him a look of awe and admiration. He thought he could see a small tear forming in Rin's eye as she covered her mouth quickly, not allowing any sound to escape. Saber gazed at Shirou with flushed cheeks and a radiant smile as he had finally found something worth fighting for. Shirou took his eyes off his lovers and snapped them back to the man who had asked the difficult question in the first place.

"If you are willing to give up your life for your chosen loved ones, then you cannot say that you are really thinking about their feelings if you are making the decision to not strive to stay by their side with them. I wish I could have been there to save you in your time of need," he said with a grimace and a small bow towards the man, "But not being able to control your greed to see your wife again caused you to lose your humanity and murder countless innocent humans, which is something that I, as a person striving to save as many people in this world as possible, will not allow to pass!" He declared allowing prana to fill his circuits as he had said that needed to be said.

"Well then, I guess we will never see eye to eye," he said with a sigh, "Looks like negotiations have broken down."

The plants on his side of the church slowly became active again and stirred the massive amount of dark energy in the area before launching themselves at everyone present in the room.

"Shirou!" "Shirou!", two desperate shouts rang out as the two ladies watch their lover collapse after finishing off the dead apostle and the multitude of branches that were currently present in his body.

The fight had been a hectic one as the number of variables to keep track of during the fight had slowly been increasing as the fight went on. Branches filled with prana being the main problem as they had free range to pop out of anywhere they wanted and attack from any angle, combine that with enough prana to keep Berserker fed for a week, and an intellect that wasn't any less than Rin's, and you are in for a rough time no matter who you are.

Shirou had taken it upon himself to try and finish off the apostle on his own before any lives could be loss, giving a look at Saber before bounding off. Saber understanding his intention. _Protect Rin, I leave her with you_, had rang out clear as day through his amber eyes.

Before long, even with minor Noble Phantasms being spawned by Shirou, the old man refused to die. Rin, and by association Saber, were beginning to run low on mana and the branches seemed to only increase as time went on.

Rin had managed to solve how they might be able to defeat the dead apostle and through the gem connection between her and Shirou, she was able to convey that the dead apostle was receiving power through the vines that were connected to him through the earth.

In a last-ditch effort, with his own magic circuits starting to burn up to a very uncomfortable point, where they felt like molten steel poured onto his nerves directly. Shirou could only grit his teeth and push through the pain in order to create an opening where Saber and Rin could hopefully sever the thick vines that seemed to be sprouting from the old man's back.

By thrusting forward with Kanshou and Bakuya, he was able to break through the old man's mass of sentinel branches and quickly traced the final sword of the fight.

The sword that he barely managed to create in front of him was a shining vermillion sword, with scarlet flames slowly swirling off the sides every so often as the sword was a blaze with ardent flames. The name of this sword was Dyrnwyn, the generous and one of the 13 treasures of Briton. This sword had been used by the man known as Rhydderch Hael, a king in the early ages of the isle of Briton who ruled over the land of Alt Clut. The sword would always burn in the hand of the one who managed to pull it out of its sheath without being combusted in flames. When invoked, the sword bestows the full might of its flames to those it deems an enemy. Combined with the fighting prowess of Shirou, the flames were soon used to sever the connection between the dead apostle and whatever was supplying him increasing large amounts of prana.

Before Shirou could end the apostle's life by disintegrating everything that made up the main body, Shirou had been pierced by no less than 14 branches, all of which were in relatively important areas. Lungs, intestines, thighs, arms, stomach, and shoulders were all destroyed damaged. Due to the invocation of the Noble Phantasm, Shirou had been forced to stand still for far too long, allowing a serious blow to be dealt to the hero of justice.

Dauntlessly, Shirou had managed to break off the branches that were sticking out of him with help from Rin and Saber as they had seen the horrible state that he was left in and rushed over to him in order to make sure that he could survive the injuries that he currently had sustained.

Shirou had decided enough was enough and cleaved through what was remaining of the undead man, not before giving the man a very sad look that only conveyed the honest words of apology that did not meet the pain that the man in front of him had went through in the past and present just to achieve one goal, a goal that went against everything that Shirou should for and could not forgive.

The man just gave a sad smile to Shirou and the ladies behind him, before his eyes turned glassy and a small smile became present on his face as if he could see the face of his loved on before him. It was entirely possible.

Just as the last of the man disintegrated into nothing, Shirou could not hold himself up anymore as there were 14 massive holes in his body and promptly collapsed before his body started shutting down. Avalon had been working overtime to try and heal him as quickly as possible, but the foreign prana that was active from the branches was inhibiting the healing and Shirou was slowly starting to fade.

"Nooo, Shirou! Please you need to stay with us!" Rin pleaded, pushing a red jewel into one of the open holes in his chest in an attempt to close it up. It had started to work very slowly, but it wasn't fast enough, even the presence of Saber would not allow for the healing of Avalon to increase.

"Shirou, please, please don't leave us, we don't know what we would do without you." Saber just softly said into one of his limp arms.

Shirou at this point could hardly keep his eyes open let alone respond before his head hit the ground and he passed out.

"Shit!" Rin yelled through her tears, "If he passes out now, Alaya will soon be on her way to claim his soul whether he accepts her offer to be a counter guardian or not! We can't let that happen!"

Rin was quickly trying to wrap her head around any possibility that could possibly lead to a way out of this situation, but her hands were tied, there was no way she could save Shirou before Alaya would reach him. That's when she got a crazy idea, one that wasn't safe or tested by any means, and would most likely end with all 3 of them dead, but it was a risk that she was willing to take, as she would not give up being with either Shirou or Saber even if it mean her life. She would rather die than not be them anymore.

Slowly she materialized the fake gem sword that she and Shirou had worked on so long ago and access the over-flowing amount of prana that was present in the sword. The sword was a copy of the one that her master, Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg uses, and allowed for super large amount of prana to be stored inside to help with accessing the Kaleidoscope. Rin had been charging the dang thing with any excess prana that was available to her for the last 6 years.

In order to save Shirou, she needed to take Shirou to a place that was currently outside of Alaya's reach. Which meant bringing him to a parallel world where the spirit of humanity had yet to manifest or did not manifest at all. She had never tried to connect to Kaleidoscope on such a deep level to allow for dimensional travel before but after 6 years of gathering prana and constant experiments to slightly feel the pull of her parallel selves, she decided that it was now or never as this was the last chance that she had in order to save Shirou.

By accessing the latent power that was stored inside of her gem sword, space around her slowly began to warp as she started to connect to the Kaleidoscope. Saber who had been watching her the whole time had been giving her a questioning look, before it became one of anxiety.

"Rin what are you planning?" Saber said as the urgency in her voice was slowly making itself present.

"Well, I'm planning on transporting us three to another in order for us to make sure that Shirou doesn't get taken by Alaya before we are able to heal him. In order to do so I must connect with the operation of parallel worlds and make a gate way into the Boundary, where all worlds and realities are present at all times. Therefore, if I have enough power left I can force us into another world where we can make sure that Shirou isn't taking by Alaya and we can swiftly make sure that he doesn't die from the holes in his body as well as whatever is forcing Avalon to shut down." She explained with a look of strain on her face as she pushed even harder to allow access to the inner workings of the world.

"Oh, okay then, what does that mean for me then? I am internally connected to the throne of heroes and will be forced to become a counter guardian if I ever lose my bond with you. What will it mean if I change worlds? I don't want to be separated from you and Shirou." Saber said softly with a small blush and a sad look on her face. Rin couldn't help but smirk a little at her knight's stoic behavior doing a 180, but quickly changed back as she could finally feel the gateway opening to the Boundary.

"Well don't you worry, because there is not a second where I will give up on either one of you if I have anything to say about it." She said confidently, but internally she could feel her stores of prana quickly depleting themselves.

As the portal opened, a myriad of colors and complex shaped exploded out briefly causing both Saber and Rin to stare in wonder. Saber had seen beautiful and powerful magic before, she had been an acquaintance of Merlin after all (and only an acquaintance), but the shifting colors and motions of the Kaleidoscope were captivating to say the least.

The two women pick up Shirou by the shoulders to see that he was still bleeding profusely out of the rather large holes that were present on his body but breathing at least. After a little bit of struggling, the three of them managed to make it through the inter-dimensional portal of swirling colors.

"_It looks just as much like an LSD trip as the last time I was here," _Rin thought to herself, "_or at least what I have heard it looks like."_

Rin then focused and strained herself for what was supposed to happen next. Zelretch had always told her that if she ever managed to make it to the Boundary of Worlds on her own, she would only need imagine where she would want to go, and obliviously supply the necessary power in order to reach the world that she wanted to see. At this point, she was desperate enough to find any world that just didn't have as much influence from Alaya to make sure that Shirou could will his way through and resist her pull.

It wasn't until Rin noticed that the prana necessary to get to any new world was much higher than anything she had ever imagined. Internally, Rin was starting to curse herself for recklessly endangering her lovers. What if Shirou had managed to stay together long enough to resist Alaya's pull? What if she had managed to heal more of his wounds before he had lost function of his body? What if she was just a little bit more powerful to allow both of her lovers to come out of that whole situation unharmed? She began to doubt herself, feeling as though she failed both Shirou and Saber. Only Saber's look of confidence and respect toward Rin brought her out of her funk and started working her mind to think of a possibility that could get all three of them out safely. That was before an old, white bearded man suddenly appeared upside-down right in front of her face as their eyes were staring right into her own.

Rin did the only thing that she could do in that moment. She screamed her head off as Saber was suddenly ready to fight again, and the old man with eyes as red as rubies was just laughing his ass off at his student's surprise.

"What the fuck, Zelretch?!" Yelled Rin, in a surprising show of energy after how much energy she had already spent. Saber just eyed the old man suspiciously before dropping her guard a little bit at the mention of the name of the old man.

"Ha, it is always fun to mess with people!" He bellowed, loudly, "Your master feels an opening in the Kaleidoscope and decided to investigate only to see his poor student on her last limbs of power, her two lovers on the verge of death, and you expect me to just help her out. No, I need to make sure she can still handle some of the excitement of her master first. HAHAHA!" He exclaimed, putting both of his hands on his waist, puffing out his chest, and lifting his head to laugh towards the heavens.

Rin was usually one to retort with a large amount of animosity (not to mention forceful aggression), but the combination of her tiredness and unwillingness to deal with one of the most (if not the most) annoying living beings on the planet caused her to give the super-powered vampire in front of her a hateful glare that only those who have spited Rin in some way in the past would experience. The man in question only laughed at his disciple's antics before getting on to the real reason that he decided to intervene in his student's fate. His eyes turned serious.

"Rin the reason I am here is to confirm whether you really want leave this world for another. You know the consequences of this action. Leaving this world, you will give up everything that you have worked for until you can gather enough power to return, if you return at all. The parallel words are finnicky and may never even return to your own world again." The old man said solemnly.

"Of course, I am fine with it. It has been a few years since I realized that I wouldn't be happy living anywhere that doesn't have these two hard heads. They are quite literally one of the reasons that I want to live, they are more important to me than anyone else in the world, besides maybe Sakura. They are my family, and I don't know what I would do without them. I would throw down my life before I let someone take either of them from me, even if that someone is Alaya." She finished, looking quite pleased with herself.

"Rin…," Saber quietly commented over the confession of the female magus. As Rin looked over at Saber, she just gave her a shy look that said everything that needed to be conveyed. Soon after though she acquired a skeptical look on her face and turned towards Zelretch.

"Hold up, why are you asking me that?"

"Oh, I was just making sure that you were sure of your decision." He said with a mischievous grin before snapping his fingers.

A new portal opened up near where everyone was floating. It had a new color and pattern to it but was nothing out of the ordinary for where they were currently located.

"This wormhole right here will take you and your lovers to a world that meets all your requirements, and luckily, the influence of Alaya is very limited there. Just a little something from you to me." He said offhand.

"There is a twist, right?" Rin said deadpanned.

"Oh, how do you know me so well? Of course, there is a twist, and of course I am not going to tell you what it is but be sure to make it entertain for me as well. I have even negotiated with Ayala for Artoria's soul to be release from contract in that so that she may join you on your new journey so be grateful. HAHA! But let's just say that by releasing Artoria's soul from the throne of heroes there may be some…interesting consequences. Alright I think that is everything. Just make sure to be careful at night. Ok? Bye!" He said as he quickly vanished from the Boundary entirely.

Rin could only grit her teeth, take a deep breath, and try not to say anything as she most certainly had questions especially with respect to what might happen to Saber but that could wait for later. Shirou needed help desperately as he was beginning to lose the heat from his body and Rin wasn't up for seeing how long Shirou could survive with multiple gapping wounds in his body. Rin also did not know how long it would actually take to get to the new world that Zelretch opened up for her little posy.

"Alright, I do not trust him in the slightest, but we do not really have much of a choice at this moment," Rin sighed, her eyes looking at Saber that moved over to Shirou to show her just how serious his case has gotten. "I know you might be a little disturbed about what Zelretch just said but rest assured, I don't think there will be any negative consequences, mostly due to how your soul as a heroic spirit is only bound to me…" she said before looking over at Saber to see her face slowly losing color at the implication.

"Rin, nothing in this world or the next would ever let me doubt my trust in you, but having my entire existence tied only to your soul is a little…scary." Saber said sheepishly.

"Isn't that how everything worked for the last few years?" Rin said before beginning to enter the portal to the other world, "Like your entire form in only still around due to our contract, right?" Rin asked confused.

"Yes, currently anyway." Saber instantly confirmed, "I am just worried if you run out of prana to sustain my existence. I would probably not even exist anymore as I am not connected to the throne anymore. I was always comfortable with our arrangement mostly due to…well…how well all three of us get along. I knew that if I ever disappeared and returned to the throne for any reason, you and Shirou would do anything in order to bring me back, and it meant so much to me, to finally have people that can see me for who I am on the inside, not just what they see on the outside." Saber finished with a bit of spite. Rin could only stare at Saber before a grinning.

"Well, I love you too. And I am pretty sure sword-for-brains here is in the same boat and more after that display back in the church," Rin said and blushed as she remembered what the idiot had the nerve to say in front of all of those people. Saber could only look at Rin with a small blush and a quick glance at the unconscious man in front of her. That is when she noticed something starting to happen inside of the wormhole to the other world.

"Rin," Saber said with all seriousness, "I think I will be arriving in the other world a little later than you both."

Rin had a look of dire concern for a second, before closing her eyes in understanding about what was going on.

"The throne is attempting to send all info of you recorded in our world through the Kaleidoscope. A feat that not only takes an immense amount of power, but also more time than usual inter-world travel. Not only that, you are also a heroic spirit with a large connection to humanity, which means that it will take you a little bit more time for all of your body and soul to transfer between the worlds. I am right?" Rin said with light-hearted nonchalance that only a genius of her caliber could understand.

"Of course, Rin, I knew you would figure it out quickly." Saber said with a look of approval. "Even now I can feel all the part of my soul that were recorded in the throne slowly trickling into me. You should go on ahead without me, it seems that this make take a bit of time, and Shirou doesn't look like he will last any longer and it will only get harder for him once Avalon notices my lack of presence." She commented with seriousness. "Take care of him, Rin, as well as yourself, I would hate to see the people that I love in pain without me. Just have enough prana to keep me alive, please." Saber said as she realized that she might not pop into existing without Rin to anchor her down.

"Yes, yes, Your Highness. I will make sure the idiot survives and you will have more than enough prana to sustain yourself once you come into existence. Just look for me through our bond or just a large amount of prana that is radiating in general alright." Rin said a little sarcastically, before turning around to leave as she stopped before she entered the new world. "Just one more thing before I leave," she said with a smirk on her face, "This." She quietly said as she quickly took Sabers lips for herself before the blonde could do anything about it and could only float in space as she accepted her lover. Long overstaying her welcome, Rin quickly parted with Saber, a trail of saliva following their mouths, showing just how intimate that they had been before quickly taking off with an injured Shirou into the new world.

"R-R-Rin, that was u-unnecessary!" Saber could only shout as she watched her two lovers go through the portal to the new world, one laughing the entire way, the other looking like the body of a castaway.

As she was having fun making out with Saber, Rin knew just what she would need to do once she got into the new world. Make sure that Shirou was safe and all of his injuries were healed up. Thankfully, Zelretch had been the one to open the portal to the new world as she would have been the equivalent of a dried up well if she had tried to open another portal. She could only gasp when she finally made it through the other side with Shirou on her reinforced shoulder.

The first thing that surprised her was the fact that she popped out 20 feet in the air in the middle of a back alley in some god forsaken town which looked to be Japanese (Thank god) by the architecture and overall look of the town before she started plummeting to the ground.

The other thing that she was surprised at was the density of mana that was present in the air. It felt as though she was walking through a shake of honey, molasses, and super glue. Was there no spirit of the earth regulating the flow of mana throughout the world at all? It caused a brief bit of pain when she had to channel the massive amount of mana into herself in order to reinforce her legs further for what she knew was about to be a very messy fall.

Although both of her legs held up, Shirou on the other hand hit the ground hard. All of the emergency aid that she had conducted on him back in their world, was the only reason she could still hear his breathing right now, and with that hard impact he just took, she hoped that she didn't just open a whole new slew of problems that could complicate the process of healing her lover.

"_Well at least the impact managed to rattle his brain a bit and wake him up_," Rin thought to herself.

"Hello sleepy head, good to see that sleeping beauty finally decided to wake up." Rin told him sarcastically.

"Ugh…where are we? Is everyone ok? Where is Saber?" He asked with not a moment to lose as he tried to push himself up, before evidently noticing the gaping holes in his body and decided to lay back down on the cold ground after a rather stern look from Rin.

"Calm down everyone is fine, well to answer your questions will take a bit of time. I'll heal you up while you ask questions, ok?" Rin said.

"Ok, well then first off, why is the mana here so dense?" Shirou said visible confused by the large increase in such a small amount of mana that he was used to dealing with.

"Oh boy, you are going to start with that one, eh?" Rin sighed while beginning to work on the holes in Shirou's body. "Let's just start with, you shouldn't try to run off and get yourself killed after speaking like that, baka." Rin lightly joke at Shirou's discomfort in both the question and the healing that was currently being performed.

Little did they know, a dark figure had been present since the time when the two popped out of the wormhole and had been eagerly watching the two as they performed feats of wonder that were rather uncommon of people of this world.

The dark figure had then made up their mind with what to do with the two, new, interesting specimens.

And that's a wrap! How was it leave a comment please and thank you!


	2. Chapter 1: Curse of the E-Rank Luck

Hello again everyone!

This chapter took a little bit longer than I had originally anticipated being released. This is mostly due to work as in the past few days have been particularly annoying with co-workers. But it is here now and will let you enjoy yourself. And again, if you have any questions regarding this story please hit me up with a comment or a PM. I respond relatively quickly as I enjoy talking to those who are interested in the story.

I would like to give a shoutout to FabledLife as he helped me understand one of the fundamental questions that I have about the fate universe. So if you ever see me in any story using the word "Prana", please call me out on it.

Also before you start reading, I have two announcements to make. First, if you have not read my new story, A Sword in the World of Ambrosia, please try it out, all the details are in the story itself but if you like it let me know. I mentioned in the AN of that story that I would be putting a poll out to see which story, FIMB or Ambrosia, would you guys like me to focus on. In my profile, I have added the link to a google sheet where you can cast your vote. What you guys say really matters to me so have at it!

My other announcement is that I will be writing a story that will be Fate x Azur Lane. You guys kinda know how I like to write now, and I love super deep characters like Shirou. Put him into a world that is pretty interesting and BAM, an interesting story. I only recently starting even thinking about this from the lastest JP release on FGO. If they can make the Voyager Prob a servant, I am pretty sure ship girls are totally fine. My only problem is that I am missing a part of the fleet that I want to pair Shirou with. I currently have Yukikaze, Admiral Graf Spee, Enterprise, and Jean Bart. Two were my personal decision as I am a bit bias, and another two, I asked my brother to decide as he helps me edit and make my stories sound better. I need another vanguard and another main fleet ship. So I have made another google sheet to see if you guys would help me decide. I am a huge Azur Lane fan and player and I really want to see what my mind can cook up with Shirou being thrown into the mix. What you guys decide is up to you.

And again, thanks for reading, and if you like the story, leave a follow and comment. I like all the motivation to make myself a better writer and to make better stories.

And of course happy reading!

Chapter 1: Curse the E rank luck

Shirou laid on the cold ground, shirt and pants both with massive holes in them. He could once wince and try to stay quiet while new organic material slowly filled in where the holes in his body were present.

"Ugh, this is in the way," Rin said, next to Shirou, as she was focusing intently on the wounds that Shirou's body currently supported. With a motion, she tore off the remains of the torn fabric off of Shirou's chest to get a better understanding of what and where she needed to heal to make sure that Shirou would be fine.

Shirou could hardly complain at his current situation, most of it was his fault, to begin with. Challenging a dead apostle ancestor to combat was what some, if not most people, would call suicide. The aching pain of all the former holes in his body still present in his mind as he could feel another one slowly close up as Rin sighed in exhaustion, before pulling out another gem and proceeding onto the other 7 holes that were still present in his abdomen, arms, and legs. Shirou wisely decided to stay quiet until he was inevitably questioned. Not long after Rin had finished the 7th hole and finally looked over at his face.

"Well, I hope you have learned from this, you idiot. Never have I had to use that many healing spells at once, and hopefully, that will be the last time as well. Jeez, my body feels like it is on fire. I know how much you want to keep me and Saber safe, but we can handle ourselves, you know. Those 8 years have not been for nothing after all." She said giving her male lover the best stink eye that she could muster without wincing. Shirou could only close his eyes in apology.

"I know, and I trust you two more than I can express in words. But that thing, that man, back there, he was targeting you and Saber both. He had some of his attention on me, but overall he wanted to prove to me that his ideology was correct, and taking you two away from me was the one thing I could not and would not stand." He said before trying to push his abdomen up, before wincing in pain and flopping back down onto the cold and rather firm ground. When this happened, he noticed that the tingling in his circuits wasn't from the pain anymore. That when he realized that the mana fluctuation in the air was much, much higher than normal. Something that normally could not happen.

"Rin, where are we? The mana here feels…raw, untamed, primordial. Like nothing I have ever experienced before. If not for the fact that my circuits cannot handle a load of mana like this, I would basically be able to fire off any number of swords before I ran out of mana." Shirou commented in equal parts shock and astonishment in what he was saying. Rin could only sigh and look guilty before looking Shirou dead in the eye with more than a little bit of anger.

"Unfortunately, you did something stupid that almost got you killed. And before you say that Avalon would have kept you safe, it was unable to work efficiently due to something the apostle did to the branches that had pierced you. I made some guesses, but I think Avalon was working overtime trying to make sure that none of the blood that had been coated on the branches would have any negative effect on your body. You know how powerful of a catalyst blood is and something like an apostle ancestor will really screw you up if you get infected with the blood." Rin said exasperatingly while rubbing her forehead and trying to ward off a migraine. "Anyway, since you almost died Alaya was about to claim your soul. Well me being super possessive of you and Saber, I did the reasonable thing and forced the Kaleidoscope open before, with a little help from Zelretch, moving the three of us to a new world where the spirit of humanity has very little influence and would not try to take you away at first sight of you. That is about it, to be honest, now we are just waiting for my circuits to cool down so I can finish healing you, as well as for Saber to finish transferring her soul from the throne of heroes to this world." Rin said nonchalantly, before noticing Shirou's look of incredulousness.

"Saber is what?! And how the hell did she get approval from Ayala to just straight up leave the throne of heroes? She is one of the most important people recorded in the throne for a reason, almost all have heard her name before or at least her legend. Why would Ayala give up someone so valuable?" Shirou said, trying to make sense of what was going on.

"To be honest, I don't know, and I don't care," Rin said with a shrug of her shoulders wincing while doing so, "Before we left for the portal to this world, Zelretch mentioned that he negotiated with Ayala to let Saber go, so whatever he did must have gotten on her good side. I was going to question him, but he just popped out of existence before I could say anything."

"Well, how long do you think it will take for her to come back into existence?"

"Considering how fast she said the process was happening and how long we have been here in this world, I can't imagine she will not be more than another hour or so," Rin stated factually.

"Well that's fine, hopefully Avalon will kick in soon so I can move around again since the only other way to heal is currently trying to cool down." Shirou could only say with a small smirk.

"Yeah something is going to get kicked in soon if you don't shut your mouth," Rin said with a kind of smile that you would rather not be on the bad side of, "Besides, I would not be able to kiss my stupid hero if he keeps running his mouth off." She finished while slowly making her way over to Shirou's side to claim Shirou as hers once again.

Before she could do anything like that though, an ominous presence suddenly filled the area, causing both Shirou and Rin to freeze up automatically. From Rin's point of view, it felt as if the corrupted greater grail had suddenly manifested itself in front of her again causing her to choke on the air around her.

From Shirou's point of view, he was suddenly back in the middle of the fire. All of the dread, anger, and hate present as he could only attempt to raise his head at what could cause such a feeling of hopelessness that was resonating with his soul.

With great effort, Shirou slowly began to see who or what was causing such a deathly aura to permeate into the air around both himself and Rin. What he saw was a man a little shorter than his own height, with messy black hair and a very clean black suit with a white tie that stood out like a sore thumb from the back-alley way that they were presently located.

That was not what really got Shirou's attention though. The eyes of the man that was looking at them had blood-red eyes that were slit could easily give away the man's nature. Shirou could only look at them for a few seconds before forcing himself to turn his head away from the eerie eyes that promised dread. He had turned to Rin to see what her reaction was like before duly noting that she had been suffering under the same effects that he had been as well as the exhaustion from overworking her circuits, resulting in a lot of awkward movements as she attempted to move her gaze away from the mysterious yet dangerous man in front of them.

"I must say," said the man in front of them, "I have never, in all of my years of living, seen anyone do anything like what you, young lady, have just done. Healing a mortally wounded man by using only the innate power of the world and a shiny rock with refined energy inside of it, color me impressed. But that makes even more interested in you two though. I could have sworn that did not feel any other humans in the general vicinity before a large shockwave of energy was released and all of a sudden, two new humans who happen to present while one was attempting to heal all of the damage that the other one had taken." The man said with a calm face at first, before the look in his eyes turned into fanatical interest.

"W-what the hell are you?" Rin could only ask as she needed answers and fast. Shirou could hardly move and she needed to make sure that he stayed safe. After all, wasn't he just the one who saved her life not too long ago? She turned to Shirou and motioned to the man, "I don't need this guy's nose to tell that something really sinister is up with you, bub. And stop giving us creepy eyes, it feels like we're being stalked."

"Don't worry about what I am, you should be more concerned about what you will be soon. It is not every day that I see such power flowing through humans, but when I do, I can't help but add them to the ranks of my slaves." The man spoke with a sneer in his voice, causing Rin's temper to flare, with Shirou at ground zero.

"Yeah whatever you say, jackass. Don't even try to touch us, or else you will regret it severely, that I can promise you with certainty." Rin growled at the man as she started to charge the magic crest in her left forearm, even with all the pain. Rin was really pissed off with this guy, just claiming herself and Shirou as nothing more than slaves. On the other hand, Rin was exhausted currently and was pushing herself to the absolute limit as her magic circuits slowly began to reach the temperature that they had just cooled down from, causing quite a bit of pain and uncomfortably.

While the dialogue between the strange man and his lover had started, Shirou was also pushing himself beyond his body's current limit. His circuits ached, the bones and muscles in his body still not completely settled from the healing that Rin had performed, blood roared in his ear as he slowly attempted to get up off his place on the ground, all while his body was screaming to stop.

What the pair didn't expect was a tentacle-like appendage to suddenly appear on the man's and make a quick swipe towards Rin.

Despite his body's protest, Shirou quickly traced a sword to his hand and launched himself in front of Rin to block the extra limb that was sprouting from the man's back. Shirou could only grunt in pain as the limb was much tougher than he had originally considered and was quickly knocked to the side as he could barely stand up at this point.

"What the hell?! Shirou!" Rin shouted as she looked over at Shirou for a quick second as she could hardly keep up with what was going on anymore. As she turned back to the dead man walking, she suddenly felt a warm sensation on her left arm and raised her right hand to see what it was.

She could only come to one conclusion as the smirk on the man's face seemed to only grow as came to terms with what had happened. Before any foul remarks could come out of her mouth, she felt the single most painful experience in her life suddenly hit her. She could not speak, scream, or really do anything rather fall to her knees before hitting the ground face-first while passing out and twitching erratically in her sleep as if she was having horrible nightmares while blood was steadily flowing down her arm. She only took one last glance at Shirou on her way down and could see the horror and fearfulness in his eyes with an outstretched hand before everything went black.

WMWMWM

Shirou could only stare in horror as his girlfriend, lover, companion, whatever you wanted to call her, was struck down right in front of him. He did not know what the man in front of him had actually done. There were no visible marks on Rin besides the one cut that nicked her arm. But that only solidified the option that the man had coated the weird limb that had sprung out of his back with something that caused Rin to shut down rather quickly. But as he saw the tears in her eyes as she fell to the ground, Shirou finally came back to reality. And he snapped.

He didn't care about his body anymore, he was a sword, and a sword only had one job, no matter how damaged he may be.

To be used.

He locked eyes with the man in the suit in front of him, before reinforcing himself beyond any safe level that he would normally attempt. But…

"**I am the Bone of My Sword…," **Shirou declared in front of the man as the unfamiliar emotion of rage washed over him like a great flood. The man only could stare as he could feel the change of power in the air and eagerly awaited what the man named "Shirou" could accomplish now that his partner was dealt with. The air turned cold and pulsing with power with every word that left Shirou's mouth. Almost as if he was reciting a prayer to a god. The man in a suit watched in anticipation of what might happen next with an exhilarated smile on his face.

"**Steel is My Body, and Fire is My Blood!"** Shirou shouted in front of the man as he felt the swords from within his soul slowly start to form underneath the skin allowing himself to reinforce himself even further. Upon doing this, the swords began to creak and scrape against each other causing harsh noises to ring out to the outside world.

The man in the suit could only give a questioning look as to what the sound was but quickly found out as the red-headed man was next to him, faster than humanly possible from what he knew, and about to cleave his face into two with another one of those swords that he created. He could see the lines of steel that were formed underneath from the skin that had been torn from the edges and lines of blades that were slowly beginning to stick out that made the man in the suit question whether the man in front him was made of steel or if he was even human at all. Ironic really.

That wasn't the end of the surprise though. Even though the man was able to make out the movements of the sword-wielding warrior in front of him while he approached. He suddenly felt a weightlessness throughout his body and quickly inspected himself to see what it was that he had felt. Upon looking down he could only see the bottom half of his body, spine severed all the way through, as if the man had taken a meat cleaver to his body. He was momentarily stunned at the quickness at which the man had swung his sword. He could see the huge potential in this one as well, and immediately redoubled his efforts to make this man into his slave as well.

Forcing his body to instantly regenerate, he watched as his old body disintegrated as well as the look of surprise on the man's face as he stood up and gave him a smug look.

"Well you have managed to impress me as well, and with as much potential as yours, I can see you becoming quite the wonderful subordinate in the future as well.

Allowing himself to calm down, Shirou once again ready his blade to the unknown entity in front of him. He needed to finish this quickly so that he could get Rin away and see if he could figure out what caused her to pass out.

But before he could even take one step towards the evil in front of him, his body finally broke down. After a dead apostle ancestor fight to the death, teleporting to other dimensions, and creepy men in suits attempting to make himself and his girlfriend into "slaves", Shirou was having a really bad day. And it only got worse.

The bones inside of his body were slowly starting to deteriorate, as well as his muscles began to weaken. He felt a few too many fractures in his body. If he had been fresh off of the bench with his body healed up and circuits much less fatigue than they currently are, he might have been able to fight the man in front of him to a standstill with the nearly unlimited amount of mana that seemed to be floating in the air. Unfortunately, like always, his luck had to be against him.

The man in the suit had a slight smirk on his face as he slowly walked forward towards where Shirou was withering in pain. Shirou could not do anything as the man raised a foot in front of him before spartan kicking him in the chest and sending him flying.

Shirou hit the ground rather hard right next to Rin's body and struggled to get close to her in order to make a last-ditch effort to just escape from his current situation. He tried to think of a way out of this, asking himself what Rin might do, but he could not think or do anything besides attempt to shield Rin from any further harm that may come to her by moving his body in between Rin's and the strange man.

"_Wait, what?" _ Shirou thought to himself as he did a double-take as he saw that the huge cut over Rin's arm had closed up like it had not been there before. He could not quite believe his eyes, quickly blinked, and reconfirmed that Rin's body had healed up just fine. Shirou could only sigh in relief before the feeling of evil and hate slowly washed over him again. But it wasn't only coming from in front of him anymore. He watched in morbid fascination as his lover slowly got off the ground after losing consciousness due to the cut that she received from the strange man. Shirou was unable to see her facial expression as she stood up, as she was facing the other way.

The questions were short-lived as Shirou was speechless as his girlfriend turned around. Shirou could not utter a word in the shock that he was currently experiencing in regard to what had happened to Rin.

She still had the same raven hair that she was known for, but the tips looked like they had been bathed in blood. As Shirou's gaze slowly fell, he noticed that Rin now had a large number of gems that looked as though they were implanted in her skin all over her body. Up and down her arms and legs in different patterns and colors. They all had a faint glow to them, showing the power that was swirling in them. Shirou then moved his stare up to Rin's face where she had her eyes closed. Four gems lined under each eye that were in the shape of teardrops as well as a final teardrop-shaped gem that was barely poking out on her chin. Shirou knew Rin was beautiful, hell he made sure that she knew every day, but whatever had happened to her was trying to improve her perfectly and Shirou could honestly say that it was working. Not only that but the power that was starting to radiate off of her was slowly increasing like waves in a typhoon.

Both her beauty and power were nothing compared to when she opened her eyes.

Now, Shirou had seen some impressive mystic eyes in the past few years by working with Rin and Saber, and he always noticed that the more powerful the eyes were, the more beautiful they became. When Rin opened her eyes, Shirou could only think back to when he had finally seen Rin as more than just a "person to save", he saw her for who she truly was and could not look at her for an entire day without blushing when he realized that. He could still hear the teasing now.

But when Rin opened her eyes, he could feel the power welling up around them as she looked at him without any emotion at all.

Her eyes looked like diamonds. That is the simplest way to put it. A minute amount of light was refracted inside of her eyes and was mesmerizing to look at, although her eyes now glowed a little bit. They were the same color though, although the aquamarine glowed with a power that was not seen before. Even with her eyes changing this much now, they still had the pupils inside of them to indicate where she was currently looking. Shirou could almost see the raw energy that was being emitted from her, as she slowly looked over Shirou as if she had forgotten something.

Shirou quickly got over his feeling of admiration and attraction before focusing in on how Rin now smelled like the man who had done this in the first place. That was all before she closed her eyes once again and took a quick bow toward the man in front of her without any regard for Shirou at all.

"…" She did not say anything as the man in the suit looked quite pleased with himself as Shirou was left wondering what had happened to her. A pang of hurt suddenly hit him when Rin slowly began to walk over to the left of the man. He could only stare at Rin in both confusion and anger.

"What did you do to her?!" Shirou growled from his place on the ground where he could not move and gave the man a look of pure hate as he struggled to regain control of his body.

"And why should I tell you, after all, you will also soon be following me without any question." The man said with a smug look as he slowly began to walk toward Shirou, with Rin following behind.

"Someone of your caliber will be of great help in order to get what I want. From just comparing the feeling that the two of you give off to some of the other beings that I have working under me, you two are significantly higher. And knowing this, I can't just walk away from such perfect specimens. Unfortunately, you don't have a say in the matter." The man just smirked before slowly walking over to where Shirou was immobilized. As he reached forward towards Shirou, another sword manifested itself on his left side before being launched into the man's side.

Shirou just gave the man a withering glare as he watched the sword that he created barely cut through the skin of the man in front of him. The man only kept his smirk as he moved his hand the rest of the way to Shirou.

"I must say, you sure have a lot of fight in you," The man while slowly pulling the sword out of his side, "Hopefully that will also transfer over to the personality that will replace yours once you become my obedient servant." He finished as his hand reached out and clasped Shirou's face and created small needles to inject his blood into Shirou's body.

Shirou could only barely hold in a scream of pain as it felt like molten lava was being poured into the bloodstream. If Shirou could comprehend anything in this state, he might have said that the pain was similar to when he would create artificial circuits from his nerves, only over a long time, instead of just instantly.

With muffled grunting, Shirou was forcing himself to stay conscious through the pain, but whatever was being poured into his body was causing him to quickly lose his sense of presence around him and his vision was slowly starting to fade. He was only able to see Rin's face one last time before his vision went black.

What he noticed was how Rin seemed to be struggling with something, and that's all the information that he needed.

XxXxX

A few minutes ago…

Rin woke up with a start, before quickly looking around herself to see exactly what was happening. She would have loved any hint of where she was, but she was just surrounded by pure darkness without anything else being present.

"Ugh, where the hell am I?" She mumbled to herself while rubbing her head as it felt like she just woke up after a night of light competitive drinking with Luvia. She slowly stood up and held out her hands to search for a wall or pillar or something in this all-encompassing darkness that she was currently locked in.

"Well, well, well, it looks like the first one decided to wake up pretty early, not surprising though, minding just how much power you possess in that body of yours." A voice called out suddenly behind her.

Rin flinched a little bit but managed to hold back her voice from the surprise that came over her as she slowly turned to see the man that she and Shirou had been fighting before she got hit and passed out. It took a few seconds for the recognition to kick in though as the man now was wearing a form-fitting yukata that matched his, now longer, pitch-black hair.

"Who the hell are you?" Rin quickly asked with a glare at the man as she could feel the waves of malice and hate slowly radiating off of the thing in front of her. She held her ground though, forcing herself to not be intimidated by the ungodly entity in front of her.

"Oh, you will find out soon enough, that I can assure you. Your body is already mine, now all that is left is to make sure that your soul is thoroughly destroyed, as that will make it much easier to plant a fake personality in your body. Then, you will be the perfect slave with enough power to take care of all those annoying demon slayers." The man said with a small smirk on his face as Rin never took her glare off the man while thinking about some of the things that the man just said.

"_Well, I know that this is my subconscious, but how the hell did this guy get in here, and what does he mean by destroying my soul? Although apparently, he has already taken control of my body, with the intention of using me to kill off some thorns in his side called the demon slayers. That must make him a demon then if he wants to get rid of the demon slayers. But that begs the question, why is he so interested in me specifically? He called me a specimen, but does that actually mean?"_ Rin asked herself, all without breaking eye contact with the smug bastard in front of her.

"So, what do you want with me then?" Rin said aloud for the man to hear her. The man then dropped his smirk before looking at her with a little bit of curiosity.

"Well, I must say, you and that man that you are with are quite intriguing. I have never seen powers that you two use and I am interested in adding you two to my collection in order to help me reach my goal. I have only ever seen similar arts in those of the other slaves that I have given power, but you and that man are still human, or at least you were. The man that you are with was something different. He still looks and speaks like a human but smells of iron, oil, and blood, something that normally isn't found in most humans." He said as Rin's eyes widened quickly before returning to their glare. She didn't know how he was able to pick up on Shirou's unique signature, but if he could that must have meant that his senses were rather heightened.

"Yeah well-"Rin was about to tell the "demon" in front of her exactly where he could shove that statement up before she lost all feeling in her feet as if they had been instantly numbed.

She looked down to see what was wrong, before watching a black mist slowly starting to slither up the bottom of her legs at a slow pace. This caused her to finally break her expressionless mask, as she looked down in surprise and a little bit of horror as she watched the first part of her feet slowly dissolve into the abyss around her.

"What the hell?" Rin said softly, more towards herself than the other being in the surrounding area as she watched as the black mist was slowly moving further up her legs. She also noticed that she lost all feeling of anything that the black mist touched, which she was briefly panicking, before calming down, shutting her eyes and going over all the information that she had acquired so far.

The man in the area just watched Rin for a few seconds before the air around them slowly began to be flooded with raw energy as blue lines ran up and down the girl, just like what the man was doing earlier, only with a much larger quantity in the girl. The man turned to the girl with blood-red eyes of interest, as could only watch as the energy that the girl was emitting was not only growing without a stop but was also slowly becoming visible to him. Blue arcs of raw energy started bouncing off seemingly nothing as the girl continued to release whatever power he was feeling.

What was most surprising, however, was that the decomposition of her soul was slowed even further as the energy seemed to be preventing the mist from progressing.

"I am impressed yet again. How does one stop their soul from being dissolved? I must admit that this has never happened with anyone that I have turned before." The man said giving Rin an intrigued look.

"Well dipshit…," Rin said in between labored breaths, "if this is my sub-consciousness…and you said something about souls being destroyed…then that just means I need…to make a reason for my soul to stay together. One of those reasons…is that this power of mine is directly connected to my soul…This means that by letting raw energy be released like this throughout my body…where my power is present…I can prevent my soul from being dissolved for an extended period of time…" Rin finished before solely concentrating on her task yet again. The mist had slowed but was still creeping up the side of her legs as she was still losing the feeling of whatever the mist touched.

"Unfortunately for you, it looks as though my blood is still doing its job, and eventually I will have full control of your body and your power." The man said with a haughty look.

"Oh I know, I took that into consideration when deciding my course of action," Rin said nonchalantly, through a strained breath. The man lost his confident look before just staring at Rin.

"What do you mean?" The man quickly asked, his tone telling of urgency.

"Oh, mister big bad guy doesn't have all the answers, and now you want me to tell you?" Rin said with as much a smug and self-satisfied look that she could muster under her condition.

The man gave Rin a hard stare without saying anything.

"It is easy, obviously, this my sub-consciousness. Meaning just a materialization of my inner soul on the inside of my consciousness. Usually, this would just mean that you would have won, my soul destroyed, and my body for your use, no matter how disgusting." Rin cringed at that thought before remembering what she was saying.

"You said that you are also trying to turn the man who came with me right? Well if you need to destroy someone's soul in order to make them your puppet for use, then you have already lost." Rin said after a long breath and looked up to the confused face of the man in front of her.

"You are the more powerful of the two of you from what I have seen if your current display of power is saying anything. So why do you, someone who is already resigned to her fate, trust the power of someone who is weaker than you?" The man asked, trying to understand her delusions. He had already won, right? There was nothing else that she or the man could do anymore once their souls started dissolving. But why was it…

Why was it that she could stand there while her literal soul is dissolving into nothing and still have a triumphant smirk on her face as though she had already won?

"You need to send a parallel thought process to make sure that the souls of those that you turn are mostly gone, right? Unfortunately for you, that means that you need to dive into Shirou's unconsciousness. "She said quickly, as the man's eyes were surprised by what she said.

"_How did she know that I only use a fraction of my consciousness to dive into their unconsciousness? Hmm, no matter what she is saying is probably a bluff anyway. Let's continue on to the next specimen." _He thought to himself.

He turned, about to leave the girl's mind. He already confirmed that her soul was dissolving, now it was time for the man that she came with. Before he could leave, however, the girl spoke up once more with a smirk on her face.

"If you are leaving to go and try to dissolve Shirou's soul, good luck. You are going to need it to survive in there." She said with one last look before her eyes glazed over fully immersing herself in her task that she has committed herself to.

The man just gave her a distasteful look and wondered how the man he was about to take control of was able to tame such a prideful woman before leaving the soul scape for his next task.

XxXxX

Muzan Kibutsuji was impressed with himself. Not had he managed to get away from the boy with the earrings and send some pawns after him, but he was able to acquire two new servants who had powers that were outside of his own understanding of the world.

He turned to the new demons that he had turned tonight. He had not decided on the names for his new demons yet, as they had yet to submit to his blood that was injected into their bodies. Another conflicting problem that was on his mind was that he knew that these two were much more powerful than the average demon, and maybe even some of the lower moons, just as humans. Now with their transformations into demons, he could feel the power beginning to radiate off of them even though they had not awoken yet. This left him in an unusual position. Depending on the personality that he implanted into their sub-consciousness, they might try to for the upper moon positions as soon as they were awakened.

While pondering this, the man's body slowly finished the transformation into a demon.

The man originally had patches of darker skin that were present on his left side, as if he was slowly growing to cover his whole body. Now the darkened skin covered most of his left side, although there were some places where the tanned skin reached out and swirled into a spiral on the side where his skin remained the normal color.

His originally copper red hair with a small patch of white in it changed as well. The white now covered up to the point where the darkened skin had stopped as if the two were connected. There was a change that intrigued the man even more though.

As soon as the progression of the tanned skin stopped progressing on his body, a small black mark showed up in the middle of his chest between the tan and white sides. Muzan couldn't help but feel uneased by the mark. It looked like an arrowhead or something of that nature with a rounded top and a pointed end. He did not have an idea of it could be but eyed it wearily as the mark slowly started to change to have a design with interlocking lines that went to the pointed end of the mark. Even with this change, the design was so vague, he had no idea of what it could be, although he could feel a strange power being emitted from it.

He was rather impressed with how these two new slaves had turned out. With powers that were unknown to him, combined with the special abilities that his blood naturally gave to those that followed him, they would be some of his most powerful creations yet. With these two he may actually be able to complete his final goal. He knew for a fact that these two would easily be in the ranks of the upper moons as soon as they were able to compete for the spots in the elite force. He was so sure that he decided to mark them early as members of the feared group.

With his control over the bodies of the two, he forced them to open their eyes as he had to the girl earlier when the man was still conscious. He still had an interest in the girl's eyes as they radiated beauty and power that he had never felt before. What really interested him was if the man also had eyes of power. Unfortunately, no power seemed to flow from them. Although he made the quick observation that the left one was now a steely gray, while the right one kept the golden brown from before his body started changing.

He then used his control over their bodies to shape their pupils into shapes that they would know by. He first turned over to the woman, her face still one of struggling for her own free will, which looked a little weird with eyes that were wide open. He thought about what he should mark them with for a moment before developing a smirk of his own. He slowly raised his hand and used the blood in her to take control.

He watched in sick fascination as the pupils of the two slowly started to transform. After a small amount of time, the pupils finished changing. Looking at the finished product, Muzan felt like it fit rather well. Rin's eyes now read "Full Moon" in the bright blue eyes, which only made the girl even more intimidating to look at. Muzan relaxed control over the girl and when he did, she closed her eyes and stopped the power from flowing from them, although the grimace of pain was still evident on her face.

He then looked over to the man, before once again forcing himself to control his body. After repeating the same process and waiting for a short time later, Shirou's pupils also changed into what Muzan wanted. Shirou's eyes now read "New Moon", which made his eyes stand out even more, especially with the addition of the steely grey eye.

Muzan looked at his work with self-admiration before a thought crossed his mind. He knew that the girl was taking so long to fully submit due to the power that was actively emitting to slow the dissolution of her soul. Why was the man taking so long to submit to his power? He was about to transfer another part of his consciousness to see what could be taking so long before the girl's last words rang through his mind again. Why was she so confident in the man who showed that he was capable with swords, but not much else? After thinking about it for a few seconds he discarded the thought and looked inside the soul of the main to see what the holdup could be.

While Muzan was looking into Shirou's soul, he, unfortunately, did not feel the same influx of energy from when the two humans first came into existence starting to ramp up again.

XxXxX

When Shirou woke up, he was surrounded by swords. All types of swords. Large, small, tall, wide, demonic, holy, destructive, protective. Any sword that you could imagine was present. All at his beck and call at any time.

It had been a long time since Shirou had been present in his own mental landscape. He could feel the power that radiated here unlike when he would just comb his mind for the right sword. Each sword was present, not needing to be traced. Only to be deployed and drawn to do their own job. He was just as surprised as the first time that he opened his reality marble. The only problem was this place was warping.

Due to his change in mentality over the past 5 years, Shirou could see in some areas of his mental landscape where the horizon had become distorted almost if the landscape itself was trying to converge in on itself. He could not tell what would happen to his reality marble if he tried to open again. Unlike Archer, he had others that he relied on, that he could count on to watch his back, that he loved enough to give every ounce of his being to.

If Rin and Saber were the ones to cause a change in his reality marble, then so be it. He was willing to do anything for those two as long as they were happy. He knew that they loved him as well and trusted him to be the one to hold everyone together even when they were mad at each other.

But a change in his reality marble wasn't his biggest problem right now. No, something had harmed Rin and transformed her into something that was different than a human. He couldn't fathom the pain that ran through him when she wouldn't respond to her own name when he was calling out to her. She looked like she was in a trance. Especially in his last moment when he was still conscious. He saw the look of pain and struggle on her face. That only showed that she was still fighting. And if she was still fighting, then Shirou wouldn't be able to stop either, not until there was nothing left of his soul and body.

Now he just needed to find a way out of his mental landscape. When he invoked his reality marble the first time, the world closed itself once he ran out of reserves. Unfortunately, this time he had not been the one to invoke this space, so finding out how to escape was the first road to figuring out how to get Rin back.

The moment he finished his thought he felt something appear behind him. It was the same presence as earlier but felt relatively weaker compared to the feeling of absolute dread that he reacted to earlier in the night.

"Rin's not completely under your control yet, or not completely anyway. She is too strong and has a will that nobody can crack. I know that you will have to destroy her completely before she will ever meet any of your demands." Shirou said while turning to face his newest adversary.

"Don't worry, if you destroy her down to nothing but a husk of her former self she will be pretty cooperative." The thing in front of him said with a nasty smirk.

Shirou instantly had Kanshou and Bakuya in his hands as this was his own mental landscape and threw them at the mysterious figure in front of him.

Shirou wasn't too surprised when the swords passed right through him like he wasn't even there. He started walking over to the thing and picked up the sword that was closest to the man and swung it at his neck before receiving the exact same result as before.

"You are going to have to try a bit harder than that to defeat me and get your lover back. But I must admit this is quite the mental landscape. What is it with you and swords?" The thing in front of him said with unhidden animosity as another volley of swords passed through the man with no reaction.

Shirou was about to keep trying everything that he had in his soul when he suddenly lost all feeling in his feet. He looked down to see what was wrong, only to see that his feet and legs were slowly being consumed by wispy darkness that seemed almost sentient.

"Huh, that's…new," Shirou said more to himself than the thing that was in front of him. He watched as the darkness made its way up to his legs like molasses. It was weird to see something actively consuming your body and losing all feeling from the said part as you could actually see it happening.

"Yes, I would expect it is. You should just give up now as no one has ever escaped with their soul completely intact when consumed when my power has begun to manifest within someone's soul." The thing said as his eyes told him that he was waiting for the moment that Shirou would despair and started begging him for mercy. Instead, a look of brief shock was present when he only looked up with more steel in his eyes, even when parts of his soul were being dissolved right in front of him.

"Unfortunately, I do not have the time to entertain you. I have someone important for me to save and I sure as hell won't let you get away if I find a single hair out of place on her. Now it is time for you to leave as this is MY domain and MY soul. If you think you can just waltz in here, claim to have corrupted my lover, and get away with it, you have another thing coming!" Shirou exclaimed while slowly building up magic power through his body and soul. The feeling of power quickly swelled as the blades in his soul reacted to his show of power and commitment to his lover. The entire mental landscape was reverberating with calls that Shirou had put out in order to leave this space and return to the real world.

"Ha, no matter what you do, there is nothing that you will be able to escape from my grasp just give up and surrender to me…" The thing slowly trailed off as he noticed that something was wrong. He looked over at Shirou and saw that his power of corruption was coming to a halt and landing on the mid-thighs of Shirou.

"What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO?!" The thing yelled with intense fury. He had no idea what was going on. He had never seen anyone able to prevent the deterioration of their soul before and could not imagine what was the cause. His power caused a fundamental breakdown of the memories of the soul and would allow him to plant a pseudo-personality to allow for almost complete control of those that he had turned into demons. Shirou looked as if he was struggling to prevent the corruption by constantly channeling his od throughout his soul, very similar to what the girl had done earlier without the massive amount of energy that she possessed. The thing took a relaxing sigh as he realized that Shirou could not keep this up forever. What he did not expect was a bright golden light to start showing brightly from the peak of the largest hill in the mental landscape.

It looked to be almost impossible to stare at, there was a comforting warmth that seemed to come with intensity of the light that was being radiated throughout the mental world.

The thing was confused by what was happening as Shirou also began to start glowing a golden light as well. With this new radiance, the remaining black corruption was quickly destroyed as the light seemed to consume whatever darkness that the thing tried to use to consume the soul of Emiya Shirou.

"What is that light?!" The thing said through gritted teeth and anger and he could not believe what was happening. Nothing like this had ever happened before. That was as far as his thoughts got as Shirou looked at him with golden eyes that seemed to be flickering to steel gray and back to the intense gold.

"That is the light that encompasses all the hopes and dreams of humanity, showing the way through the darkness and reaching the place where everyone can be saved and have carefree lives. No hardship, no pain, no need to guess if you will survive till tomorrow. That is what Avalon, The Ever-Distant Utopia, represents. This light is the ultimate device for preventing pain and will allow for the user to recover from almost fatal wounds like a miracle. The only problem is that only certain people can access this powerful relic. One who was the original owner of Avalon, and one who has had it inside of him since he was a boy. Which one do you think I am?" Shirou said while tracing a copy of Avalon into his left hand. He finally managed to put enough power into Avalon to reverse the process that was destroying his soul. What confused Shirou was how easily it happened though; it should have taken longer for Avalon to heal the damage that the darkness had done to his soul.

This is why Shirou had more than a little bit of a hunch that Saber had finally come out of the wormhole. He could not get Avalon to react this much no matter how much power he pushed into it. With Artoria sending her own unique od to Avalon, she caused it to go into overdrive and release the full power of the strongest defensive noble phantasm in existence. From what he heard from Saber, Avalon didn't prevent damage but just healed everything back so fast that you would not ever have to fight with any wounds. The only way to defeat Saber with Avalon would be to wear her out and with both Rin and Shirou acting as her mana source, there was no way that would ever happen anytime soon.

With the boost from the truly unlocked Avalon, he was feeling on top of the world, as if he could do anything.

With that quick thought, he had a new idea to get out of this world. While the thing in front of him was still in awe of the glowing light where the original Avalon stood on the hill of swords, he threw his traced copy at the distracted abomination. The thing only noticed at the last second as the copy cut cleanly through his torso, allowing a huge amount of black sludge to be released from his body as he screamed bloody murder at Shirou as the rest of his body slowly disappeared. At the same time, the light of Avalon began to dim as Shirou could see his mental landscape begin to close in on itself to show that he was beginning to wake up as well.

"I will see you when I get out, Saber…" Shirou said with longing as the mental landscape began to fracture in every direction before finally collapsing as everything went dark.

#$()$#

Saber was feeling weird.

She had experienced a lot of things in her life as King of Camelot. The pride in her own kingdom of having stood tall through thick and thin without ever being brought to its knees, the round table and those that she could have called friends and trusted retainers, as well as the horrific betrayal of both her son(?) and one of her closest knights. She quickly switched her thinking to the new memories that had slowly been developing ever since she had been cut from the throne of heroes. Different outcomes of her life if she had made different decisions were present and constantly swirling around in her head as she tried to make sense of what she was looking at.

Having a multitude of memories from different lives of herself of all people was currently causing a rather large headache to build up, and not just from the fact that apparently, she is some kind of mech pilot in a different life. And that wasn't even the weirdest one. She didn't even want to think about the lion fursuit. There were two that impacted her the most. The first being the decision where she gave up Excalibur, the symbol of the might of humanity and its ability to defeat practically any enemy, as long as they were against what humanity stood for. Due to the lack of Avalon that prevented her from growing in the first place, she could tell that she actually reached full maturity instead of being perpetually inside of a 15-year-old body. She could not tell what she looked like though as her memories were all in a first-person view, making it difficult to see how she matured over time. Taking up her holy lance, Rhongominyad, as her main weapon instead of Excalibur, she allowed for the prosperity of her Kingdom, before stepping down as King as she had slowly aged and was unable to take the battlefield anymore. Saber was unable to see who she passed the kingship down to, much to her secret relief, before the memory of that certain timeline slowly faded away back into the depths of her mind.

The other memory that significantly impacted her was if she had succeeded in culling Mordred's rebellion and sentenced those responsible to death. She had grown cold, heartless, uncaring of those that she originally vowed to protect when she first took hold of the sword in the stone. She was strong, yes, but she was feared. Never listening to the people that lived in her kingdom, she caused a great amount of pain and sorrow to everyone who stood in her wake. Excalibur being corrupted as a result into something darker and sinister. Something that should stay deep within her own mind. Maybe one day she would consult with her lovers over something like this but currently, she did not want to put any unnecessary strain on them. Yes, Camelot had lasted for a millennium, and by conquering half of the world before eventually stepping down as king. Saber could not believe the thought process of her other-selves. She had committed everything to her kingdom, and yet she would still turn her back on them when they needed help the most? No, she could not accept that type of thinking and quickly removed it as well from her mind, hopefully never to resurface.

Although these weren't the only memories that were constantly being bombarded into her mind, there were the ones that impacted her the most in the most unsettling way possible. During this time that she was processing all the new information that was coming from what she assumed to be the throne of heroes, she had begun to feel something change with her bond between her lovers.

Up until now, she had been able to feel the bond between both Rin and Shirou with relative ease, but in the last few minutes, she could feel it stretching and trying to sever, something that she refused to believe was actually happening. She had known Rin and Shirou for 8 years now and had gone through both heaven and hell. She watched them both mature from the naïve kids that she was tasked with protecting in the Holy Grail War to mature adults that she was proud to call her companions and her lovers. This was why if something was trying to break the bonds between the ones that she decided to live her second chance at life for, she would do everything in her power to prevent such a thing from happening.

She had been in this wormhole for almost 30 minutes constantly organizing her own thoughts as more and more memories kept coming in. She couldn't keep this up any longer. Between the boredom of just sitting around in a multicolored passage to another world and feeling like her head would explode at any minute from the vast amount of information that was being absorbed into her own existence as well as the strain in the bond between her lovers, she needed to get out of here. Hopefully, this was enough time for her spirit origin to allow transfer to another reality. She didn't have time to wait for anything else as the strain on the bond tightened even more, which sent Saber into high alert and immediately resumed passing along the tunnel before feeling the power of the kaleidoscope open once again and create the exit portal for the wormhole that she had spent way too much time in.

When she popped out of the portal, she needed a second to regain her bearings. Not being under the effect of gravity had disoriented her a little bit, but she was quickly back on her feet with the shake of her head. She took in the area around her, trying to figure out where exactly she was and where Shirou and Rin were. It didn't take her long as she could feel their presence through their bond only about a hundred meters away. She could still feel the bond between the two, but it had weakened even further from when she decided to come out of the wormhole. With a sense of urgency, she ran as fast as her legs could carry her without destroying any of the surrounding architecture that was present in where she entered this world. After a few seconds of moving through back alleyways and corridors of buildings, she finally managed to make out not two but three figures in the darkness as she was certain two of the figures were her companions.

"Shirou, Rin…I am so glad to see you…" She said with a sigh of relief as she began to walk closer and after a few seconds was immediately put on high alert. Neither Rin nor Shirou were ones to let greetings go unnoticed, no matter how busy they were. That was the first flag that sprang into her head as she continued to move closer to where the three figures stood with her hand in position to summon her sword in the case of violence.

The second flag was much more obvious as she moved closer to the three figures that she could not make out yet. A sense of dread and death that she could only equate to the corrupt, manifested grail from the Fifth Holy Grail War. Such a raw amount of evil was being emitted from the three figures that Saber questioned if they were actually Rin and Shirou. This thought was quickly shot down as she could _feel_ that they were in front of her, what she could not figure out was why such a dreaded presence radiated off of them in waves which had never been seen before.

As she slowly crept forward to see if she could make out Rin and Shirou from the other entity that seemed to have no intention of leaving anytime soon as no one had moved an inch from when she had first arrived.

She finally made out the figures, and feelings of surprise, rage, and sorrow all showed themselves in an instant. She almost activated mana burst by accident by the impact of what she saw.

What she saw was a man in the middle of both Rin and Shirou who had two appendages sprouting from his back and was piercing through both of the abdomens of her lovers with the needle-like tip of the extra limb. It was grotesque and horrifying to say the least, as it looked as though the man was pumping something into both of her lovers through the appendages.

Rin and Shirou had not moved that much since she arrived. She could see some relatively minor cosmetic changes in Rin once she got close enough to make out the details of why they felt like they took a dip in some grail-cursed sludge. Rin looked as though she had implanted a decent amount of her gems into her body as Saber could see the way that they gleamed off of the tiny amount of light that showed in the dark alleyway. There was also the fact observation that the tips of her hair had turned into a crimson red that was similar to shirts that she liked to wear. Other than that, there were no other obvious changes that she could see from here.

Shirou was a different story altogether. It looked as if someone had taken the left part of Archer and the right part of Shirou and stuck them together. Although the two different parts were not completely even on one side or the other, there were different swirling patterns of tanned skin that was on the fair skin side. Shirou's hair was no exception in this case as it had the same treatment as the rest of his body. What intrigued her was the small black shape that rested in the middle of his chest, intersected by the boundary between each part of his body. She could not make it out from here but the shape itself was relatively similar and she had a pretty good assumption of what it could be.

Both of them looked like they were locked in a comatose state. The thing that was in between them also had its eyes closed in concentration as Saber slowly inched her way closer to where her companions were dormant. She could feel that both of them were still alive, although Rin seemed to be fading rather rapidly from what she could tell from the Master-Servant bond that they shared. What exactly was happening to Rin and Shirou, Saber could not say, but what she did know was that the thing in front of her was the one that most likely caused pain and harm to the two most important people in her life, and that was something that she could not forgive.

As she summoned her sword to her hands under the mist to hide the true identity of the sword, she prepared to come down on the thing in front of her swiftly and make off with Rin and Shirou to make sure that they were ok and nothing was wrong with them.

Before she could make her swing downward, she noticed that Shirou had started to glow. But she knew. It wasn't Shirou. It was the relic of ancient times that was constantly protecting him from any harm and making sure that he would always be able to keep fighting for those that he cared for. It was the most powerful relic that she was gifted from the Faes in order to uphold the dream of humanity and its limitless potential. Only she could use it, or so she thought so anyway. 8 years ago, she was absolutely gobsmacked to find out that not only her sheath was found once again but it was in the body of some 17-year-old boy who had the dreams of becoming a hero of justice. What that boy would turn out to be still caused Saber to shake her head and laugh at how someone's fate could change by just one coincidental meeting.

She pushed that thought into the back of her mind as she watched as the small black mark in Shirou's chest begin to glow as well, only now Saber realized it was a marking of Avalon with all the detail being highlighted as it now contrasted his own skin and the darkness that the light was piercing through. When she saw it beginning to glow she supplied her own energy that would allow Avalon to unlock its own potential as the most powerful defensive noble phantasm in existence. She paused from supplying her own energy for only a moment as she watched as Shirou woke up with a start, taking in a large breath of air as if he hadn't been able to breathe as he shook his head to force himself out of his tiredness.

"Saber?!" Shirou said with a surprise as he stared at her with a look of gratefulness before he had a look of urgency and could feel the thing next to him starting to stir after recovering from the defeat inside of Shirou's mental landscape.

"Free Rin and knock that thing away as far as you can launch him!" Shirou shouted as he observed the situation and attempted to stand on his own. Saber had moved to help him up, but with a stern look quickly decided against it.

"Don't worry about me, I just need a few seconds. But we need to put as much distance as we can between that thing and Rin before he wakes up." Shirou explained quickly as he took a knee as he attempted to stand up once again.

"Alright, Shirou but please take care of yourself." She said as she finally was able to look into his eyes and was a little unnerved with the new writing that seemed to be carved into his pupils. She then swiftly cut the appendage that was connected to Rin before stepping up to the "thing", as Shirou described it, and using the flat side of her blade, she smashed her sword into the center mass of the creature in front of her and forcing it to be knocked backward and to crash into the end of the alleyway around 50 meters away. Saber then turned back to Rin as she could hardly feel the contract between them anymore. She ran over to her to see what was wrong but there were no external injuries that were present on her body. Further looking into her body, she could feel a strong power being emitted that saber was curious about.

While Saber was making sure that Rin was ok, Shirou had finally managed to stand up and was slowly dragging his body over to where the others were. While he was doing this, he also held his hand over his chest and was concentrating on reaching deep into his soul. He had only done this a few times in the past and each time had been just uncomfortable as the last. He focused on the past, on the fire itself, how devastating it had been. How much it had made him into who he was today. Then he focused on "that" smile. The smile from his father told him that it was ok to help people. The smile that made him want to save people as well so he could one day smile like that.

Shirou could only look at the memory with a content expression as he knew that this was the moment that would have decided his entire existence. But now, he has those that he cherishes above anyone else. He has people that he will do anything for, even if that means being unable to help others. He will still work his utmost to save everyone, but with companions that he can no longer live without, he must be willing to stand by his decision to prioritize them over anyone else. He was torn but knew that this path was one decided by his heart and with this confirmation, he could feel something stirring within his soul.

Shirou, with his hand held against his chest, began to move outward and with the movement, particles of light started to converge and form a gold and blue sheath that represented the future of humanity. Avalon was slowly being pulled out of Shirou's chest as he was forcing it to take a physical form again in order to save one of the ones that he loves.

Once he reached the spot where Saber was kneeling with Rin's chest propped up in her arms, Shirou had managed to take the entirety of Avalon out of himself while breathing rather haggardly. He felt like he was missing something inside of his soul. Something that defined his entire existence and meaning for managing to survive in the fire. He could live with that feeling for now as Rin needed Avalon much more than he did right now if she was still experiencing the same thing that he had earlier.

As he lowered Avalon so that the end was pressed into the middle of Rin's chest, the sacred relic began to glow and start to disperse once again. He had never conceptualized Avalon inside of anyone else before, so he had no idea if whatever he was doing was correct. Although Rin had slowly begun to show more facial expressions than she had earlier; her brows furrowed in discomfort as Avalon finished being absorbed into her body. After Shirou finished and made sure that Rin had started to look a little better after the process was complete. He immediately fell to the ground in exhaustion and what could be described as hunger.

He had never felt anything like this type of hunger before. If he felt like his body was begging for food, but not the conventional kind. He had always associated eating with kind memories and times where he could relax and not have to worry about what else was going on. This hunger made his body feel the need to hunt, to track down his prey and bring it down and feast on it. He shook aside the feeling as he noticed signs of Rin starting to wake up.

Saber watched Shirou as he collapsed to the ground panting and trying to stabilize himself as quickly as possible. Shirou seemed to be having trouble as he looked to be in deep thought as she noticed that Rin had begun to move slightly, and her breathing had quickly gotten better as her sheath seemed to be doing its job well in restoring whatever the thing had done to her. As soon as Rin's breath hitched, she woke up with a start and was breathing heavily looking around to see where she was. When she noticed that Saber was holding her in her arms with Shirou right next to where she was laying, she could not help but tear up a little.

When the dark mist was consuming her, it had started to show her visions where she had screwed up and caused the injury or death of one of her lovers. At first, she knew that this was just some way to get inside her head and break down so that she would be easier to take over, the thing that she talked to seemed to find joy in that. But after a while, she slowly started seeing them more vividly and almost as if she was feeling all the raw emotions and physical pain that the vision was making her see.

By the time the black mist had reached her neck, she couldn't tell where she was anymore and just wanted to be back in the arms of the two most important people in the world to her. That was the one thought that kept her going as the black mist consumed her chin and mouth causing even more panic as the intrusive thoughts kept coming back stronger and stronger. The mist was about to cover her eyes when she saw it.

A light, a faint one, but it was definitely there. As it drew closer, she could feel the warmth on the rest of her face as she finally knew what she was looking at. How could she not? She could feel the resoluteness, dauntless, and unbendable will that was found in the overflowing torrent that was Saber's natural mana that she produced, as well as the caring, passionate, and unyielding force that was Shirou's od that was present in the light.

As the light got closer, she could feel the dark mist surrounding her start to dissipate into nothing. She could soon see her shoulders and torso again as the warmth of the light seemed to have the passion of her lovers imbued into it. Not long after that, she could see the form of Avalon upon her as it practically burned away the rest of darkness. She reached up to grab before pulling into her newly formed chest and embracing Avalon as she could not contain the thankfulness that wanted to show her lovers but the symbol that they had both come to be known by was a pretty good replacement. As she began to shed tears onto the omnipotent sheath, it began to envelop her in an even brighter light before the world around her started to crack as the floor began to shatter before fracturing.

Rin woke up and took a hoarse breath as it felt like she could not breathe. She opened her eyes to see a pair of emerald green orbs looking into hers with a huge amount of relief and love. Her own eyes held tears in them as she reached up and began to hold onto Saber as all her worries and troubles seemed to melt away in an instant.

"Saber…," Rin said softly through a quiet voice, "I was so scared. Everything was beginning to go dark. I could only see images of you and Shirou being taken from me, and I could not do anything about it. The two things that are irreplaceable to me and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. Are you sure that it is really you, I don't think I can take anymore?" Rin said through sobs as she could not contain the negative emotions that she felt anymore, and they started to pour-over. Saber had only seen Rin like this a few times in the past. When she had seen the full extent of both Shirou, and her own memories were a good example. But when she had been degraded down in the clocktower to being just an "oriental mage" and saying that her family was a failure that she should have died out just like her family had in the Fourth Holy Grail War, her emotions had gotten the better of her.

Rin was a very prideful person and was able to take a lot of blows to that pride before she broke down, but when she did, she did it out of the view of everyone besides her beloveds. She would make sure that only they would see her like that, and they would make sure to show her just how much she was loved. When the night had passed and she had gotten all of those bad thoughts out of her mind, she came back stronger than ever, not to mention with a need for a little bit of vengeance. After one of Rin's breakdowns, Shirou and Saber could only stand back and watched with awe as she brought down every person who tried to mess with her, with interest. She made quite a name of herself in the clock tower and was well on her way of climbing up the tower's hierarchy. Zelretch had laughed his ass off one time when Rin had tapped into the power of the Kaleidoscope enough to send some poor chap's life research into a portal to another reality and vouched for her when she inevitable got in trouble saying, "It was the best thing that he had seen in the past few days."

"Don't worry, Rin we are here now, it's ok." Saber said as she was rubbing Rin's back as Shirou managed to force himself up and hug the other side of Rin while she calmed down. For a moment everything seemed fine as the trio were truly back together after only being separated for only an hour which had felt like an eternity.

The little moment in time that they had to themselves ended quickly as they could hear the rubble beginning to shift as the thing slowly rose to his feet again before staring with eyes of hate and malice in Shirou's direction.

"I don't know where you came from," the thing said in Saber's direction, "But those are my slaves and I will be reclaiming my property, no matter what you do." The thing said as the miasma around him thickened even further.

This is the moment that the trio knew that this would not quite be over yet.


	3. Chapter 2: Demons

Hey guys,

Sorry for the long time between updates. School is killer this semester and I really haven't had the time to focus on anything else in the meantime. Although that doesn't stop me from letting the imagination flow every once in a while. I am however almost done with the semester so hopefully, I will be able to update a few more times before winter break is over.

For an update for those who have read my other story A Sword in the World of Ambrosia, unfortunately, I will be waiting another month to determine my course of action for the next arc in the Albian capital. I am really hoping that the Royal Academy arc will finish soon so I can know what I need to change in order to integrate Shirou into the story. Also, I might have confused some readers over the premise of the story itself so I will probably update it before the next chapter to clarify some things that I have having a hard time deciding.

Besides that, if you have any questions, just shoot a review over and I will try to respond to it if I am not too busy. Rather than that, enjoy reading!

Fire is my blood: Chapter 2 - Demons

Muzan Kibusuji was confused. Never had anyone been able to resist the power of his blood before. Most had almost instantly turned with little to no resistance. The problem was the power that these humans had learned to harness. Somehow, they have managed to learn how to modify the muscles in their bodies to reach the point where they are able to keep up with his demons. Something about focusing their energy in their lungs and allowing the energy infused blood to strengthen the muscles, or something like that. Kokushibo attempted to explain it to him a few times in the past but he never really understood the concept. After all, his body adapted itself in the middle of fighting to counter any threats that could potentially change the fight.

Muzan had tried to turn demon hunters before, although it had always succeeded in the end, the process took far too long, and they still were able to resist the orders that they were given in moments where they briefly remember the memories of their previous life's. Muzan quickly learned that having rouge subordinates who did not listen to your every order was dangerous and was causing more harm than the benefits that he received from having them under his control. He usually would get rid of any one of them that would continuously defy him for too long. But this new feeling that he felt not even half an hour ago was new and he was curious about what could cause such large energy fluctuations.

When he felt the two new presences practically pop into existence next to him as he was drawing closer to the epicenter of the fluctuations without hardly any explanation, he couldn't help himself. Once he had confirmed that they were indeed humans from their smell and energy signature, he was intrigued. Powerful humans, who could open doorways to different places on their own without his blood? He had to try and turn these two into his slaves. Maybe then he could finally eradicate those who stood in the way of his final goal.

When he had stumbled onto them, he noticed that they both looked rather worn out. The woman looked to be using her energy to heal the man of the multiple wounds that were present on his body when they exited from the hole that they came from. After she had finished, Muzan could tell that she was exhausted as she could hardly keep herself up anymore, even with the man trying to keep her stable.

This was when he revealed himself. By keeping the talking to a minimum, he was able to quickly mark the woman as she could hardly stand up due to the lack of energy in her body. The man then quickly retaliated for revenge. But even with the force that he was coming at Muzan with, he was still greatly injured and exhausted from wherever these two originally came from. After showing off a bit and teasing the man, he too fell into a deep slumber that would normally result in another demon being born from his blood.

When he had talked to the women inside her mind, she seemed to be unable to do anything, even when she slowed down the corruption of her soul, it was still similar to when the demon slayers focused their own energy into resisting the degradation of their own soul. Although it did feel as if she had quite a bit more energy to throw around than the demon slayers did as he could feel and see said energy flowing from her as if she was projecting it like a demon blood art in her own mental landscape. How would this girl change if she would acquire the body of a demon? He was starting to get excited at the prospect.

Once, he had finished changing the pupils of his two new demons, he could still feel the energy being released from the woman, but although the man had physically changed, similar to the woman had, he could not feel the soul of the man starting to degrade on its own. Meaning that the man was similar to those who had rather strong wills to stay human and resisted it with all their might. Something that would be a welcome aspect in any demon once most of their memories was sealed and/or destroyed.

In order to speed up the process of turning the man into a demon, he once again transported his own consciousness into the man's own soul. And what he found there put Muzan Kibutsuji in awe.

Swords. Thousands of swords, if not millions.

It was very hard to surprise someone who had lived over a thousand years, but the look that he had on his face when he saw what he was around would have made the upper moons laugh out loud at the look of their normally stoic and sour leader. As surprised as he was, he still managed to return to a neutral expression before the man began talking. All while the conversation had been going on, he could only stare at the beauty of the soul that looked to be in a state of sadness, although on the horizon it looked as if the world had begun to cave in on itself and was interesting to see.

The last time Muzan was this surprised would have been whenever Nakime had first shown her blood demon ability and usefulness that came with it. The infinity castle where Muzan would constantly have meetings with those of the 12 demon moons as well as a secure location that no one could access without Nakime opening up a doorway for them to enter. Even if someone had entered the castle without her knowledge, she could just as easily remove them from the castle with just a thought and the strum of her biwa.

This space that he was in was similar to the infinity castle but felt...different. Like this was an entirely different world that he appeared in. The feeling that he got from the infinity castle was that Nakime's power and presence were continuously felt no matter where she was in the castle itself. This place felt like something had fundamentally changed with the world. Now he knew that this was just a mental landscape still, but he could feel that the rules had changed. What he also was just noticing was how this world was manifesting even when he should be the one in control of this space. Like the woman earlier, he had seen some others show strength and power when resisting his blood, but never anything like this.

He was in awe once again as he continued to watch the man in front of him resist and eventually break free from the darkness that was slowly dissolving his soul, much to his own shock. In his own ranting about how no one had ever been able to resist his blood before, he saw a light begin to shine in the distance on a hill that seemed to the center of the mental landscape. He could hardly hear what the man who was with him was even saying as he could only stare at the light and the feeling of warmth that was present.

It had been a long time since he felt this radiating warmth. It was almost as if the sun finally allowed him to bask in its glory again. But that wasn't the only feeling that he felt through the light. He could feel hope trying to creep back into his soul, something that he hadn't felt in centuries. Something that he quickly put down with a shake of the head and a growl.

With the newfound feelings discarded, he turned to the man again in another attempt to turn him into a demon. As he was turning to look at the man, the man threw an object at him once again. Muzan disregarded the flying object as it would pass right through his body, continuing to turn so that his eyes and would land on the man again. Before he could make eye contact, he actually felt the object impact the fragment of his consciousness that he placed inside of the man's consciousness and swiftly pierced completely through him. He only had a single thought before his consciousness was ejected from the mental landscape, and that was the disbelief that he felt while interacting with this man. He defied every aspect of his powers that he had shown so far, and each resulted in eventual failure. Once the object, which looked remarkably like a sheath for a sword, had pierced completely through him, he blacked out, not knowing how long it would take for a mental wound of this magnitude to heal.

%^&&^%

3rd Person

Rin and co. were once again getting ready to fight for their lives. The entity in front of them was once again starting to get up and move towards them with a look of rage on its face. Although with the way that it was stumbling and having trouble even standing, it looked as though they had a bit of time to figure out their strategy before the entity was actually in a range that would be troublesome. Saber stood resolutely as the thing slowly walked towards the trio, all while trying to pull the broken parts of his body back into place while he kept trying to stand.

The man had obviously had a huge amount of natural regeneration from what they had just witnessed. In most cases, this would be a very difficult enemy to engage as it would take overwhelming his own regeneration to possibly defeat him. The trio already knew of the difficulties of fighting foes with this ability and were nervous by the amount of power they could feel emitting from the thing in front of them.

In order to defeat an enemy with this much power, Shirou was an incredibly important piece to the plan to defeat those with regeneration. When Rin turned to ask Shirou if he could project one of his more special blades to deal with the regeneration, she was shocked to see that Shirou looked as if he had just finished a no-holding-back sparring session with Saber and that wasn't even including how she was unable to detect hardly any mana in his body. When he looked like what it did right now, he would usually sleep for an extended period of time while he allowed Avalon to heal him up and for his natural stores of energy to restore themselves.

What didn't make sense was how Shirou was still so tired. They had a little under an hour to recover from their fight with the dead apostle from Rin's estimates. Ordinarily, this was enough time for Shirou to recover enough to at least create a few of his swords, but the ragged look that he was currently wearing showed that he was still running on practically nothing.

After 8 years, you would think that someone as close to Shirou as Rin would have had a good understanding of how quickly he was able to recover from magical exhaustion, as he would almost always push himself to expand his own stores for when he could actually use his reality marble again on his own this time. But this was different. If Shirou was recovering as quickly as he usually does, he would be standing in front of both Rin and Saber without a second thought. If he was still so weak as to be unable to help them when their lives were in danger, Rin knew that he must be very close to his limit.

When Rin took notice of Shirou's new form, she started kicking herself for not realizing it earlier. That thing that was currently making its way towards them, had done something to the bodies of both herself and Shirou. Rin honestly felt better than she usually did after she allowed herself to recover a bit from healing Shirou and whatever the thing did to her. She felt stronger. Faster, like she had the ability to keep up with both of her lovers. Not only that, she felt as if she could think faster as well like her mind had slowed down the rest of the world allowing for her to process things with more time available to her. Looking down at her arms, she looked again at the small gems that poked out of her skin, giving off a vibrant light as they were filled with her own power. Maybe she could use them in some of her more expensive rituals, she thought to herself.

While she stared into the gems that now rested in her body, she felt something that she had not noticed earlier.

A very small pull on her own reserves, her body being the recipient of the energy was normally used for powering her gems and invoking spells. That was when she figured out what was going on with Shirou. He was constantly being drained of his own magic before he could actually use it for something regarding his own magecraft.

Rin has much larger stores of od and mana as well as the ability to rapidly recover magical energy into her circuits. Shirou, unfortunately, has no such luck as his own stores were much smaller than Rin's which had the intrinsic effect of not being able to absorb mana as efficiently as Rin.

With how much mana her new body was absorbing, it was no wonder Shirou looked and probably felt like shit. She could hardly feel the pull and instantly recovered whatever she had lost but Shirou most likely was unable to recover all of the energy that was lost from his body absorbing it.

This asked the question of what exactly the thing did to herself and Shirou, besides the obvious cosmetic changes. The thing had already stated that he wanted to turn them both into slaves and if that black mist that was consuming her in her own mind was anything related to that, then Rin had been rather close to losing who she was.

Once she finished all of those thoughts happening inside of her head, Rin once again focused on the adversary in front of her. To say the practically instant regeneration was not terrifying would be a lie as he kept rearranging his own body to be in a similar state to what it was before Saber practically bitch smacked him into a couple of streets over.

He paused for a moment to pick up the white fedora that was separated from his head after his body went flying rather quickly. After dusting it off for a moment and placing it on his head, he glared towards the trio with a sneer on his face

"It seems as though you are causing me a fair bit more trouble than I had anticipated. But no matter this shall end soon. I will not give up on true unique specimens such as yourselves." Said the thing as it continued to walk towards the trio while producing an even stronger feeling of darkness. Saber tightened her grip on her invisible sword while Rin started charging her gems in preparation for an attack. Shirou on the other hand was finally able to force himself to stand up despite the pain that he was feeling throughout his body. Every movement was a whole new sensation of pain as his body felt like it was breaking down. There was also the overwhelming sense of what only could be called hunger as he felt the need for something to sustain his existence. He could only keep his feelings to himself as he needed to stay strong in front of the adversary current making its way towards them.

"What have you done to my companions, monster? Not only have you altered their physical appearance, but you also almost completely dissolved the soul of one of them. So, I ask you again, monster. What have you done to them?! It would be wise to answer me truthfully as I do not take kindly to those who harm those who are important to me." Saber shouted as she watched with barely restrained anger as the thing in front of her slowly came to a stop 20 meters in front of herself and her companions. Saber tensed, ready to move in response to any action taken by the man. She could feel both her lovers do the same as she felt a large amount of mana being sent to her through their contract from Rin. What she did not expect was to feel Shirou's namesake power of tracing only create a single weapon before he once again toppled to the ground due to the reoccurring issue of mana depletion.

Saber could not take her eyes off the weapon in front of her but was thankful when the weapon that Shirou had produced landed blade down in the ground in front of her, directly in her right peripheral.

She had seen the weapon before and looked at it with annoyance. It had been quite the troubling weapon when she had seen it last as it caused her to be unable to fight at her full strength for an extended period of time. What she was able to see was the shaft of a golden spear with a large number of engravings across the surface. Finishing with a set of Gaelic runes at the blade of the spear, Saber confirmed that what Shirou had made was indeed Gae Buidhe, The Golden Rose of Mortality. If Shirou had spent the rest of his resources to create this singular weapon, then he must have seen something that this creature was able to do before he had been knocked out.

Saber beamed with pride at Shirou for managing to discover this much and quickly picked up the spear with her right hand, transferring her sword over to her lone left hand. Although impractical, the sword and spear combination made fighting this enemy a lot easier if what Shirou was trying to tell her through the creation of this spear was true. She once again focused on the enemy in front of her while said the enemy had a confused look on its face while looking at the spear itself.

Muzan felt an uneasy feeling radiating from the spear as he watched the new blonde armored girl take a fighting stance with the new spear and an invisible weapon. He quickly corrected himself as he could feel the strange feeling coming from the girl herself and he could tell that she was a master of weapon arts. What he did not expect was for the blonde to kick off and was almost on top of him while thrusting the golden spear into his shoulder.

Saber followed her first strike with the spear by spinning counterclockwise with Excalibur in her left hand coming around to cut her way through the other shoulder of Muzan while tearing the spear from his right shoulder as she did so.

Before he could counter, Saber instantly backpedaled back to her initial position in front of both Rin and Shirou to see the results that the two weapons left after her first strikes. She watched as the monster in front of her was confused as to why his shoulder was not healing. After a brief look of effort on the monster's face, he simply shrugged and ripped off a large part of his right-side abdomen leaving him without a right shoulder. This was advantageous for the monster though, as soon as the flesh had separated from his body, the shoulder and arm were instantly replaced while the old shoulder with the wound in it dissolved into black particles as it fell to the ground after the monster dropped it.

Unlike the wound by Gae Buidhe however, the wound made by Excalibur was regenerating although at a much slower pace than normal. It looked as though golden motes of light were inhibiting the process of regeneration. What surprised the monster and as well as the two lovers of Saber was when the monster attempted to repeat his way of healing the first wound. Once the monster had cleanly separated the wounded portion from his body and waited for his natural regeneration to kick in, he saw that the golden motes of light remained where they were before he attempted to use the makeshift method of healing himself.

The wound itself was still present as the body was only able to heal what had not been damaged by the invisible sword. The monster looked at the wound with annoyance as he finally stopped his advance towards the trio while he waited for the rest of his wound to heal. This worked for the trio as well as they began to talk with one another through their bonds.

"Shirou, I thank you for your effort in creating this annoying but admittedly useful weapon, but it seems that only my sword is of any real hassle to him. Beyond that, what do you two think we should do now? Even with my sword's anti-evil properties, he is still managing to regenerate although it is much slower than before." Saber transmitted to both of her masters.

"That is a really good question, Saber, if I knew the answer to it, I would tell you. You just cleaved that thing into practically two parts with one of the strongest swords in existence which was specifically made to combat things like whatever it is. Yet he is still just standing with a smirk on his face, acting as if nothing had ever happened while he is waiting for a full heal. It's these kinds of guys that piss me off the most, I tell you." Rin ranted while never taking her eyes off of the thing in front of her.

Even with Saber not being able to see Rin from her own viewpoint, she and Shirou could tell that Rin was more than a little bit pissed at the current situation. The usually calm, analytical thinker and supporter of the group was currently trying to work out how to inflict the most pain as possible to their adversary. That or just blowing him to pieces would probably work just as well, Shirou thought to himself.

"If you give me a few minutes I should be able to make an even more powerful anti-healing noble phantasm. Although whatever that thing did to my body is draining my reserves almost faster than I can replenish them." Shirou commented while looking at his shaking hands while still kneeling on the ground. He had released Gae Buidhe soon after Saber had stated the ineffectiveness of the spear.

"Unfortunately, Shirou, not every problem can be solved by throwing assorted weaponry with special effects. Just a lot of them. Although it did work out for Goldie pretty well…" Rin mumbled as Saber and Shirou both scowled at the comment, "But yes, I am also feeling whatever that thing did as well, although I hardly feel the drain, that is probably because my circuits were originally a lot less atrophied than yours were when your circuits were finally opened by Archer in the Grail War. Honestly, how you managed to do conventional magecraft without them open is just asking for pain, you know." Rin quickly acknowledged Shirou. Shirou could only sigh in resignation.

"What do you propose, Rin?" Saber said with a hint of anxiety as she watched the demon slowly regenerating back into his normal shape.

Rin was quiet for a few moments before looking down at her own arms and legs and reminding herself what the thing had done to them. She experimentally pulled on one of the gems that glowed on the outside of her left arm. Much to her surprise, the gem was easily released with the slight pull as if her body was naturally reacting to her own need. A few moments later, a new, much duller gem appeared in the same spot as the last one. Upon further inspection of the new gem, the raw power inside of it was similar to something that she had been actively charging for a few hours. What was even wilder was when she focused on the gem, for only a fraction of a second, the entire world around her looked as if it had turned entirely crystalline. When she looked at the gem through this new world, she could physically see the energy that it gave off. When she turned to look at her companions, her vision had returned to normal. She was interested in what had just happened but that could wait for later as she needed to find a way to get all of them out of here with as little difficulty as possible. She looked over at how tired Shirou was and then back down to the gem resting in her hand and couldn't hide the small smile that graced her face.

"It's all coming together," she quietly said more to herself than the other two who could currently hear her. She then looked over at Shirou with a smile and Shirou felt a chill run down his back.

"R-Rin is everything ok?" Shirou stuttered as he saw the look on her face.

"Oh, just fine Shirou, never better," Rin said sweetly and Shirou let out a breath of nervousness he didn't know he was holding in.

"Buuuut...could you do one small, little favor for me?" Rin said as she had started walking towards Shirou.

"Uh, sure? We are kinda in the middle of something important right now." Shirou confirmed although his eyes refused to look up at Rin.

"Oh, I just want you to...swallow this gem." Rin finished and Shirou looked up with a face of shock as he saw the large rock, it was almost the size of a golf ball!

"What?! How do you think I would even be able to swallow something that huge?! What would even be the point? Plus wasn't this thing just created from your body? We don't even know what it could do!" Shirou yelled through the bond.

"Those are all very good questions and statements, but the fact is that we really don't have the time to be experimenting with whatever changes our bodies have gone through, so just swallow the damn thing already, if everything is how I think it is, we may be able to deal a pretty critical blow to that thing and get the hell out here," Rin said with urgency as the thing in front of them had almost finished regenerating.

Shirou looked down at the bright gem and sighed before he lifted the gem up and placed it in his mouth. The large object took up most of the room in his mouth while Shirou was about to attempt to swallow the gem. As Shirou prepared to feel a large amount of unnatural pain in his throat, he was pleasantly surprised to feel the gem inside of his mouth dissolving into smaller, individual particles. Once he felt the smaller particles disappear as well, he could feel his mana reserves slowly being filled.

It was a weird feeling, as it felt like the mana was being forced into his body, although it didn't hurt so much as give him a sense of being "filled up". Maybe this was what Saber and Rin felt like when he…

He really didn't want to go into that train of thought, so he refocused on the mana that was coming into his body. A few moments later, he was unable to feel any more mana being moved into his own reserves, with his reserves being filled only to about 5%. Although it wasn't much, he was thankful to Rin for allowing him to not feel completely useless anymore as he was able to stand by forcing his torso up with his hands on his knees.

"Thanks, Rin, I feel like I can actually do something now. How did you know that would work?" Shirou said while turning his eyes to the thing that had almost finished healing up.

"I didn't, that's the funny part. Although I am starting to believe that whatever gems that my body makes are made for whatever purpose that I want them for. But that can wait for later as we really need to get rid of this guy. He reminds me of Shinji from back in the day," Rin shivered, "that guy thought that everything belonged to him and that is not even considering the number of times that he asked me out. Ugh...I am glad he is gone." She said while now turning her head to look at the thing in front of them.

"I see you are all done chatting amongst yourselves, hopefully now you will be able to put up a decent fight. I want to have my servants totally obedient, so let's try to finish this up before the sun rises." Muzan said to the group as 9 appendages appeared from his back, each with wicked bladed protruding out of them every 25 centimeters or so.

"Now let the real fun begin," Muzan stated with a smear as the appendages took off from their initial positions to move to harm the trio from where they stood. They were intercepted however when Saber appeared in front of a multitude of the appendages and quickly began to cut ones that approached too close with precise cuts, allowing for the hidden sword's effect to once again reveal itself as Muzan was unable to recover from any of the damage that had being inflicted by the hidden sword. For the appendages that had made it past Saber, Shirou had projected the Black Bow and was shooting anything that was approaching both him and Rin. Shirou currently only had enough mana to project low level anti-healing noble phantasms in bulk and even then, could slowly start to feel his circuits warming up again as they had not been able to fully cool down from the last time he used them, combined with the rather sad state of his reserves, fighting off the appendages that seemed to keep regenerating after discarding the wound that Shirou had inflicted was slowly beginning to wear him down. That was not including the hunger feeling that he felt again that was slowly becoming stronger the more swords that he used. Shirou did however note that when using the Black Bow, it was significantly easier to pull back than he remembered.

Rin had taken it upon herself to blast whatever moved towards her with spells from the remaining gems that she had entered this world with.

"Bringe Flammen hervor, um meine Feinde vor mir zu verbrennen!" Rin said aloud causing the 3 rubies that she held in her hand to burst to result in an inferno that reached all the way to the main body, causing the appendages to be incinerated as Rin took a breath after using a spell that powerful. Unfortunately, the blow only resulted in resetting where that had been before as the charred body of Muzan had instantly healed along with the appendages as they once again proceeded to move to target the trio.

After another few minutes of going back and forth between each side, Muzan began to feel annoyed with the resistance that these three were putting up against him. Yes, he could see that he was beginning to wear them down, but the swordsman in front had resolved herself and was easily on par if not better than some of the most experienced demon slayers that he had seen. Being able to keep up with his body without trying too hard was no easy feat yet this young blond girl was almost predicting where he would strike next and even try to find an opening to counter. He could feel like something was off about her but discarded the thought for later as she was looking for any opening that he presented. Instinctively, he knew that it would be quite a while before he would be able to break through her defense. With the other two supporting her, and one even giving her energy, this would be a very long-drawn-out battle and Muzan would prefer if this would be concluded before the sun rose.

"This is beginning to grate on my patience. How will you all react to this? Black Demon Blood Art: Blood Dominance." Said Muzan as he held his hand out as if he were reaching out to grab something.

"Wha-?!" Shirou and Rin both exclaimed at the same time when they felt their bodies freeze up without responding to any movement. The pain started to rise the more they struggled as if the blood inside their bodies was beginning to boil. Shirou attempted to reinforce himself even further, evident by the faint blue lines of his magic circuits appearing but after a few moments of struggle was still unable to move. Fortunately, Rin was quickly able to find out that she could still use her natural abilities as a magus as she concentrated in front of her for a way to get out of their current predicament.

By focusing in front of her, she used her own od to create a few more fire runes in front of her before allowing them to activate and target the thing in front of them. What she didn't expect was to see a couple of swords from where Shirou was, fired directly at the thing as well. The swords were both beautiful and radiated a powerful holy aura, similar to the black keys but on a much greater scale. What Rin did not understand was the instinctive fear that she felt from the blades as soon as they had been projected by Shirou. She had never felt like that around anything Kirei had ever shown her while growing up, so why had she started flinching like this now? She told herself that it was another test that she would eventually have run in order to understand just what had been done to their bodies.

Without even needing to hear the words of warning from both Shirou and Rin as their respective techniques were quickly reaching her location, Saber kept her eyes on her adversary in an attempt to make an opening to strike once her companions' attacks reached the thing in front of her. Before they could reach the thing, Saber cut down the remaining limbs in one fell swoop and waited for the opportunity to strike.

The fire looked to have only done cosmetic damage to it, from what Saber could see. On the other hand, once the holy swords reached the main body of the entity, he grunted in pain as the swords were constantly breaking down the flesh that they had been pierced into, causing Muzan to flinch lose focus for only a moment when his thoughts were interrupted but the sharp and consistent pain that was making itself known on the left side of his body.

The moment that she saw the entity's lack of focus, she released all of the excess stored energy that she had available and instantly moved into the guard of the thing in front of her. With the addition of the new power that she just released; she allowed the true form of her sword to be revealed to the world around her. The radiating energy from the Sword of Promised Victory shown with a light that was as bright as the Light at World's End. Golden particles light was not only given off from the power of her sword, but also from herself, as she was the one to triumph over all the evils in the world. She is the Once and Future King; The One, True King of the Britons and she would not hesitate to destroy those that threaten the lives of the innocent!

"HAAAAAAAA!" Saber shouted as she let loose the raw energy that she had been containing within the sword. As she thrust forward, the light condensed itself off the tip of the sword and began to shine until it was unleashed. A bright beam of light was emitted from the sword, angled up, and pierced directly through the torso of the entity in front of her. In the next moment, the entity's eyes widen in shock as the light expanded outward and consumed most of his torso and abdomen with only its head and appendages intact.

Muzan couldn't believe what had just happened, from one moment where he had practically succeeded in preventing the other two from assisting the blond in front of him, and the next he was only left with a head, arms, and legs. It also didn't help that the pain that he felt from the power that the swordswomen unleash on top of him was of the same power that had been used to prevent his healing from keeping up in the first place. Now realizing just how vulnerable he was with only a head and appendages as well as a reduction to his healing ability, he instantly began to panic.

He always had thought that he was invincible but now showing just how close that he is to his demise, an old emotion that he never thought that he would feel again slowly crept into his mind. Fear. And with this fear, he started to try and get away from the thing that he was fearful of. He needed to get away now!

It only took Rin another few seconds after the light had been unleashed by Saber's sword calmed down and she finally recovered the ability to move her own body again. The same was true for Shirou as well, but it looked like those last noble phantasms that he created caused him to pass out, as Rin saw him land firmly on his front side as whatever was controlling them had been stopped. Rin was pretty sure that she could see the steam coming from Shirou's body from the heat of his circuits.

Suddenly, Rin heard a popping noise. She instantly turned her head to see what could have possibly made that noise, but the noise had originated in the same spot as where Saber had been standing.

"Saber what was that noise? It sounded wrong, unnatural…" She said as she waited for Saber to respond. Saber just looked at her with a confused expression as Saber walked over to where she and Shirou were at. She also noticed the significant loss of her reserves once again and sighed in frustration as it would take even longer to get back into top form now that her body had been changed into whatever it was now. Hopefully, Shirou would wake up soon so they could get the hell out of here and find out what exactly had been done to them.

"Well, the head and appendages of the thing that we had just been fighting suddenly exploded. The sinister energy that we had also been feeling had dissipated as well" Saber commented more confused than anything else. Rin looked towards her to say something with a look of surprise before shrugging her shoulders in indifference about what happened to the piece of shit.

"Oh well, whatever that thing was, let's hope there aren't any more of them. I really don't want to fight something that has the ability to control my body at will. Now let's get going and at least try to find someplace to stay for the rest of the night. I am not like Shirou who can just sleep anywhere at any time. How the hell he can just fall asleep on the bare ground is impossible for me to understand." Rin commented to Saber as she moved to pick Shirou up so they could move him. Rin noted quickly that whatever had been done to her body had also drastically increased the parameters of her body. Even without Saber's help, she picked up Shirou's large 188 cm and 84 kg frame without too much difficulty as she tossed him over her right shoulder like a sack of potatoes without even using reinforcement.

"Rin, what did that thing do to your body exactly?" Saber asked with surprise as she had not been expecting to ever see her female lover carrying her male counterpart on her shoulder like that. It was funny to picture the face of Shirou if he woke up like that, she thought to herself. Although he didn't look like it or act like it, Shirou still had some pride as a man, and being carried like that was a good way of obliterating that pride.

She had just been noticing the other subtle difference in her lovers as well. The eyes that Rin had were mesmerizing to say it simply. The small amount of light refracting through the almost crystalline organs was beautiful, to say the least. What was confusing to Saber was what the monster was trying to accomplish by changing the pupils of her lovers to read certain things. New Moon and Full Moon? What did that mean? Saber was almost certain that Rin had these same concerns as well. Although all of these changes would hopefully be figured out with time.

One thing that Saber noticed about Shirou however, was that not counting the mark of Avalon that was initially on his chest, there had been a few more marks pop up on his skin, almost like they had just been tattooed on. What was most noticeable was the mark of a certain spear seen earlier in the day on the right shoulder blade, pointing down.

"I don't really know to be honest," Rin said, shaking Saber out of her thoughts," but if I am getting all the benefits of this change without any downfalls then I am more than happy to accept it. Will you be able to as well? Shirou and I might not be considered as human beings anymore." Rin said softly as she turned around to look at Saber for confirmation.

"Yes Rin, I promise that I will accept whatever you and Shirou have become. You are my masters. But more importantly, you are the people who have accepted all of my sins, faults, and dreams onto yourselves and I am eternally grateful for that. Whatever your wish is my command, Rin. I love you with all of my heart and more. My wish at one point in time had been to correct the mistakes of my past. Now, however…" She said as she looked up at the now heavily blushing Rin, "my wish is to stay with the two of you forever, for there is nothing greater than someone you can trust your life with. And for that, I thank you, Rin." Saber said as she walked closer to where Rin had been walking with Shirou with a small blush on her face as well.

"W-well then, I am glad you feel that way, and I bet sword-for-brains is in the same boat." Rin stuttered out as she was going to die from embarrassment if her lovers said any more embarrassing things today.

"But thank you for believing in me and Shirou, it means the world to us that you trust us. But for now, let's get out of here. I am still getting the creeps from what happened earlier." She said to Saber who quickly responded with a confirmation and following along to see where this new world would take them.

What they couldn't expect was the smirking of a severed head in the distance as he went through the memories that he obtained from the woman named Rin Tohsaka before she could reject the corruption of her soul.

"Rin Tohsaka, Shirou Emiya, and King Arthur, and The Holy Grail War, huh" Well, things would certainly get interesting soon, he thought to himself as he waited for the rest of his body to regenerate. Maybe he could use some of those techniques that they had shown before.

"What did they call it again? Oh yes, Magecraft."

Alright, how was it? It was a bit shorter from the last chapters but I hope you all liked it.


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